WiFi hotspots in schools

[SimpleSi]

just had my first incident of someone running a WiFi hotspot in a school

 

I noticed an SSID on Ch11 called WiFi54 and thought - how come a house WiFi is producing a strong signal in school?

 

It kept on varying and I couldn't track where it was coming from

 

At break time it disappeared completely but then re-appeared at start of lessons.

 

I tracked it down to a TA carrying it around in their handbag.

 

Have you had to explicity ban these in your schools or is not a real problem?

 

Simon

[elsiegee40]

I imagine the kids don't have the credentials to get into this one unless s/he has reset the password to something stupidly simple. Or are you saying it's public?

 

It's probanly worth having a chat with the TA to point out that unsecured, or with a simple password, they're likely to find their data allowance used up by the kids! If they're using their phone as a hotspot and have unlimited data, it's probably worthwhile commenting that data used by the device that's tethered to the phone may actually limited while the phone is not!

[mjk]

It is a real problem if your school has it's own wifi because it will cause a huge amount of interference, esp if multiple kids use it to disrupt lessons.

Some systems (Meru) can mitigate against rogue access points, but I rather gather it can cause as many problems as it solves.

 

I would also be interested in hearing others solutions to this.

[Michael]

There isn't really a solution to this, but users will find their battery level will drain very quickly as the phone's being used as a mobile access point - even more so, if devices are proactively connected to it.

[Michael]

Another solution could be 5GHz WiFi in school. To the best of my knowledge, no Smartphone out there broadcasts its own SSID in 5GHz, but only 2.4GHz, despite being dual-band compatible to receive either 2.4GHz or 5GHz WiFi from a real access point.

[SimpleSi]

Its more the interference to school WiFi that was my issue although I can see the security issues in high schools