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Usually there are only 3-5 WiFi network around my place. Yesterday I found suddenly there are 12-14 WiFi station with similar name appeared. The SSIDs look like ED1ECB19, ED1ECC27, ED1EDB16...

Has anyone seen this before? How can I get more information to see if these are all from same AP (maybe an advanced one that can have several AP in one box)? Or this is from ISP or whatever.

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I guess it's the default SSID of the modem router from the ISP and they haven't rename it. It happens to me too. check this out i.stack.imgur.com/zB0Nk.png – Ye Lin Aung Nov 26 '11 at 6:10
I know 2WIRExxx is at&t wireless router. Usually each at&t ADSL only has one AP and one SSID. In my case, these similar SSIDs show up at the same time. – Stan Nov 26 '11 at 12:22

closed as too localized by Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams, techie007, Sathya♦ Dec 2 '11 at 9:56

This question is unlikely to help any future visitors; it is only relevant to a small geographic area, a specific moment in time, or an extraordinarily narrow situation that is not generally applicable to the worldwide audience of the internet. For help making this question more broadly applicable, see the FAQ.

2 Answers

up vote 3 down vote

The comment is correct. ISPs that deliver a wireless router as part of their service tend to auto-generate the SSID.

So if you are in an area with limited ISP options it is common to see similar SSIDs nearby.

Note that some ISPs do not do this particularly well, and generate the Pre-Shared-Key with a similar algorithm, and in cases in such a way that the key can be derived from the SSID fairly easily.

Always change the SSID and key from default, no matter what the source of your router.

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up vote 3 down vote

If you have a Windows computer with a compatable WiFi card, inSSIDer from metageek is a free program that will tell you all sorts of useful information about wireless networks it can see. It will often be able to tell you the manufacturer and model of the device. I mainly use it to find the quietest channel to use for my WiFi.

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