Wi-Fi access

[lostaquarium]

Hi everyone!

I'm a student, and my college has a wonderful Wi-Fi network which I normally access with my college username and password. However I was dismayed to find that my Kindle refuses to connect to "enterprise" or "peer-to-peer" networks.

It has no problem connecting to regular home networks, as I was able to use the one at my parents house which I visited over Christmas.

Does anyone know of a way around this? It would mean that I have effectively no Wi-Fi, as I normally get all of my internet use through the college network. I don't want to pay an extra £20 a month to install Wi-Fi in my own home, just for the sake of the Kindle.

Thanks in advance!

[TheKindleWorm]

Originally Posted by lostaquarium

Hi everyone!

I'm a student, and my college has a wonderful Wi-Fi network which I normally access with my college username and password. However I was dismayed to find that my Kindle refuses to connect to "enterprise" or "peer-to-peer" networks.

It has no problem connecting to regular home networks, as I was able to use the one at my parents house which I visited over Christmas.

Does anyone know of a way around this? It would mean that I have effectively no Wi-Fi, as I normally get all of my internet use through the college network. I don't want to pay an extra £20 a month to install Wi-Fi in my own home, just for the sake of the Kindle.

Thanks in advance!

Hi and welcome to mobileread

I'm afraid that I don't know a way to do what you want - perhaps someone else does.

How old is your Kindle? I would say that it might be worth considering asking Amazon if you can exchange it for the 3G + wifi version so you can access the Internet without paying for wifi in your own home and of course using it where-ever else you are.

[kranu]

Originally Posted by lostaquarium

Hi everyone!

I'm a student, and my college has a wonderful Wi-Fi network which I normally access with my college username and password. However I was dismayed to find that my Kindle refuses to connect to "enterprise" or "peer-to-peer" networks.

It has no problem connecting to regular home networks, as I was able to use the one at my parents house which I visited over Christmas.

Does anyone know of a way around this? It would mean that I have effectively no Wi-Fi, as I normally get all of my internet use through the college network. I don't want to pay an extra £20 a month to install Wi-Fi in my own home, just for the sake of the Kindle.

Remember, you can always connect via USB

Thanks in advance!

If you're unwilling to shell out $50 for 3G access, here's what you can do:

1. Buy a cheap wireless router (with at least one computer Ethernet port)
2. Connect a computer that has access to the internet to the router
3. Set up Internet Connection Sharing (or the equivalent on Mac) for the network on the router
4. Have the Kindle connect to your router, which will then link to your computer's internet connection

In other words, your Kindle will be using your computer's wireless connection. It's rather cumbersome, and I'd recommend that you simply pay $50, unless you have other wireless devices with the same problem. To clarify, the computer will be acting as a bridge. It will have a wireless connection to the college's network, and a Ethernet connection to your router.

[nomiqayum]

I saw many people join us each day , welcome to the forum

[lostaquarium]

Thank you for your replies and welcomes, TheKindleWorm, Kranu and Nomiqayum. I guess I'm stuck with no Wi-Fi unless I want to pay extra for 3G or deal with a lot of high-tech router stuff which I'm really not clever enough to do I'm currently transferring downloaded files through the USB cable, and will have to make do with that until I'm next at my parents house!

It's probably better for my budget that I can't purchase books from the Kindle store

[NoWorthWhile]

Welcome lostaquarium

Do you have perhaps a smartphone + mobile data plan? If so, check if you could use it as a wireless hotspot. I know I use that feature a lot.

[grizedale]

Check your software version, mine refused at work until I updated to 3.03

[dwig]

Originally Posted by lostaquarium

...I'm currently transferring downloaded files through the USB cable...
It's probably better for my budget that I can't purchase books from the Kindle store

But you can buy from the Kindle Store, at least once you've registered your Kindle through a WiFi connection (e.g. your parent's house, ...).

Once registered, you can log in to the your Kindle account from a destop computer and purchase your book for download to PC. You will be then asked to select the Kindle device that is the target (you'll only have the one). The download's DRM will be keyed to your Kindle and can be sideloaded via USB.

[lostaquarium]

Originally Posted by dwig

But you can buy from the Kindle Store, at least once you've registered your Kindle through a WiFi connection (e.g. your parent's house, ...).

Once registered, you can log in to the your Kindle account from a destop computer and purchase your book for download to PC. You will be then asked to select the Kindle device that is the target (you'll only have the one). The download's DRM will be keyed to your Kindle and can be sideloaded via USB.

Wow, that's REALLY cool. Just what I needed to know! Thanks!

[Bookworm_Girl]

I have a friend in the UK who has the Kindle Wi-fi only but doesn't have Wi-fi at home either. He didn't want to pay the extra money for the 3G version. Since he purchased the Kindle direct from Amazon UK, it came pre-registered to his account. He downloads all of his books through the Amazon UK website and then transfers them to his Kindle via USB cable.

He did run into one problem with this method. Sometimes he could download books ok and sometimes he would get a weird server error. He tried it on another person's computer and got the same error message. When he called Amazon support, they told him that there were sometimes issues downloading from their server using Internet Explorer. They had him install the web browser Firefox. It fixed the issue and now he can download books fine. I have never seen any posts on this issue - maybe it's something about the Amazon UK server and not common - but I thought I would share just in case you discover this problem too.