Connecting To Wi-Fi

[MTbowels]

A friend of mine was with me earlier this week on a canal boat. My contract phone, on the 3 network, picked up a wi-fi signal from a nearby boatyard. Out of curiosity, I clicked on the "connect" option in settings and was immediately connected to their router without having to enter a password. When my friend tried to do the same, he was asked for a password in order to connect. We both had android phones (mines a HTC One and his was a Sony Xperia). I just don't understand why my phone could connect to the router without a password whilst his needed the password. Any ideas?

Thank you

[Old_Geezer]

Interesting. Sure you were both trying to get on the same router ? That you hadn't been given the password in the past and simply forgotten that the phone has stored it ? Or maybe his phone requires a null password to be entered for some reason. Did he try beyond the point of being asked for a password ?

[MTbowels]

Thanks OG. Yes, most definitely the same router. Router name began "ABC" with a simple suffix word. Neither of us had been to the place before and had no connections with the company. In fact, I only learnt later that the boatyard name was a trading name with the real company behind it called "ABC xxxxxxx". I'm not familiar with null passwords so I don't know. He did try to connect but failed - his phone continued to ask for the password.

It's very odd and I've not heard of anything like this before.

[hc4361]

Shooting in the dark here but could it be possible that your friend's security settings are tighter than yours and won't allow the phone to connect to an unsecured wifi?