WiHi

[montecarlo]

I have decided to term this Wireless Hilarity.

Someone in my neighbourhood has recently acquired the same model of WiFi router that I have, which is okay, but what is not okay is the fact that our factory set BSSIDs are the same. As a result my WiFi network has gone for a toss - my laptop is not able to distinguish between the 2 APs and I have frequent disconnections. I had to download a sniffer to figure out why it was happening, and the sniffer showed me that the other AP also had the same MAC Addr. I turned off my router to confirm this.

As far as I know the BSSID is unique and fixed, but it is not sacrosanct. If I am able to login to the router through telnet, I should be able to change the BSSID using ifconfig. However, I am not sure if it is possible with all routers. Can someone please shed more light on this.

[Zonie]

montecarlo: most routers have the ability to change the SSID. Can you elaborate on the make and the model of the router and AP? You may want to also consider changing the channel as well to something like channel 11.

[montecarlo]

Actually, you are referring to the ESSID which can be easily set from the configuration page. However I am referring to the BSSID which is factory set. It is the MAC HW Addr which cannot be changed (supposedly) but most hardware devices these days have some way by which the MAC Addr can be changed. If the MAC Addr of 2 APs are the same, then the station will not be able to distinguish between them, even if the Channel and (E)SSID are different.

The make of my router is Huawei Quidway WA1003A DSL Modem with WiFi Router.

[NooNoo]

The routers mac addresses should not be the same, period. Each mac address for EVERY single network capable equipment, whether it be a printer, a computer, a router, a switch or whatever is unique.

You should take this to the manufacturer support....

[montecarlo]

I understand what you are saying but the problem is that I got the router through the Internet Provider; I didnt purchase it seperately from a retailer. The Internet Provider will have no idea about these issues, they wont bother about a WiFi issue, they are only concerned about the ADSL service. The manufacturer has no local support centre. I will try talking to the service provider on the weekend, but it is going to be a one hell of a job to make them understand the problem.

[NooNoo]

Your ISP supplied the box, just ask them to supply another. As for the MAC address... are you absolutely sure you are talking about the hardware 48bit mac address? Have you actually looked on the neighbours web interface and taken a screen shot? If you present two screen shots of two different routers, you might be able to explain it to your ISP better.

[gazzak]

I work for a company that manufactures a lot of electronics. Some of the equipment I look after CAN have the MAC address changed with the right utility, (and a very very small number of people here have access to that utility).

It's very likely to have happened if some idiot who manufactures these things has had a bad day at the office, so don't discount it. Like NooNoo said, screenshots to the supplier are the way to go.

[montecarlo]

NooNoo, yes I am absolutely sure. The WLAN MAC Address (BSSID) of my router and my neighbour's router is 00:50:F1:12:12:10. When my router is switched on, the sniffer thinks that both of them are the same AP operating in 2 different channels - so it shows both the channels as well as both the ESSIDs. When I switch off my router, it shows only the other one. I am very confident that the other guy also has the same BSSID.
The problem over here is that customer service is poor and most of those folks are technically incompetent. More often than not, you are better off solving the problem yourself. I am in touch with an employee from Huawei to see if there is some workaround.
Another issue with the router is that I am not able to telnet to it or access the http configuration page from the ethernet interface. It used to work when I was connecting through WiFi, but now since WiFi is plagued, I am unable to change the routers configuration. It also has a USB interface and I need to check out if I can atleast configure through that.

[NooNoo]

Well if you can't connect via ethernet, it is faulty and you have another reason to ask for a replacement from your incompetent isp!

[montecarlo]

Yesterday evening I made some headway in debugging this issue. The other AP was off for sometime (mercifully) and I managed to connect to my AP. First off, I figured out why I was unable to access telnet and the config page from the ethernet interface. I had made a setting which allowed only a particular LAN IP to connect. I added my Ethernet IP also to it and I was able to telnet as well as access the config page through ethernet after that. That was a big relief.
As for the wireless interface, here is what I found in the router log:

Error getting mac from BootLoader enviroment for wlan0
Using default mac address: 00.50.F1.12.12.10
Use BootLoader command:
setenv mac_ap xx.xx.xx.xx.xx.xx
to set mac address

After this I logged in to the router through telnet and tried to use this command but it didnt work. I changed the HW addr using ifconfig but when I restarted the AP for it to take effect, it again defaulted to the faulty address. I guess the other person also has the same problem because of which our HW Addresses are the same!

I have sent this log to the employee of the router company as well as a few other people who own this model to try and take this further.

[NooNoo]

You have to set a legal mac address. Out of interest, what did you put in?

[montecarlo]

I had set it as 01:02:03:04:05:06.

These are the commands I used:

ifconfig wlan0 down
ifconfig wlan0 hw ether 01:02:03:04:05:06
ifconfig wlan0 up

After this I restarted the AP.

[NooNoo]

That is not a valid mac address. You really need to talk to the manufacturer.

[montecarlo]

I sent them an email. They responded asking me for my contact number. They dont have a service centre in the city I live in. So this is going to take a while

[NooNoo]

Don't you have overnight delivery in India?