They should really be using hotspots anyway, not public Wi-Fi.
Premier Inn does not sound like the name of an establishment that caters to the business traveler demographic.
Try a decentralized VPN like Mysterium.
This is a problem with all the major VPN providers. Since they are centralized they have a limited number of exit points so anyone who is anti-privacy can just block a handful of IP’s and defeat that entire VPN.
With a decentralized VPN anyone who is a member of the VPN network can become a exit point. So the number of IP’s you would need to block blows up from a handful to many thousands, and they change every day. Decentralized VPN’s also generally allow you to make a small amount of money by choosing to be an exit point for other users.
Isn’t that just so they can restrict what you can do so you will have to purchase their entertainment packages?
Palo Alto with GlobalProtect client. Tries IPSec first for performance, fails to SSL if that doesn’t work.
VPNs at hotels and traveling abroad are best effort for us.
All of our travel staff have cell phones. They can tether when traveling if hotel WiFi doesn’t allow them to do what they need. It’s the cost of doing business.
China is the worst. Sometimes our vpn works and others not so much.
Mobile internet is so good nowadays I’m surprised anybody still uses hotel wifi.
Just make a hotspot using your company phone and call it a day.
standup up a ssl port 443 VPN
I wonder if using IPsec instead of SSL/TLS would bypass blocking.
Can you VPN over port 443? That’s how I got around my schools VPN block when I was in college.
This used to be surprisingly common - issues at airports and hotels on default ports was really common. Run the VPN on another port. If you are the sysadmin, connect to a machine and test a few typical ports, say 443, see if they are shaping/slowing traffic on the port and if it’ll connect.
Can you establish a tunnel over 53? Used to be an old trick since alot of networks leave 53 open for dns requests.
What type of Vpn? Is it just that your vpn is not compatible with the way their network works?
Premier Inn WiFi has a captive portal, so devices with restrictive ‘always on’ Vpn software will refuse to allow access to the portal and be unable to connect to the vpn endpoint.
Other than that, I’ve not had a problem with them and Wire guard or openvpn based connections (am in one evenings all this week).
Just move your vpn endpoints to port 443.
Why would those guys do that?
Ugh. My executives who I support have tons of issues trying to connect to the VPN on hotel Wi-Fi, especially in different countries. I’ve gotten 2:00 a.m. Wake up calls by the CEO more than once in the last few months because he’s in Austria or Sweden and can’t use his VPN.
SSL/TLS VPNs still work and survive proxy’s etc. Windows supports them natively too. May help some folks. For commercial services Proton also works.
Sounds like you’ll have to tell the board you can only stay in 5 star hotels from now on.
Personally though I would just issue anyone who needs to travel with a phone which they can tether, I’ve seen too many conference venues with shitty wifi when someone needs to do a sales presentation or provide on sight support but they can’t let the consultant’s laptop on the wifi.
As an American who has stayed at Premier Inns before, they’re doing you a favor by making you switch hotel chains.
I don’t get it. Did they say their rationale for blocking VPN’s? We can, of course, come up with some theories.
Am I the only one here that hasn’t heard of Premier inn?