Chris Marshall :
Thanks for your reply.
I have reset the router and even rebooted my laptop, i have tried to connect manually and still nothing works. Belkin said that it might be something to do with my internet provider but samsung said that was rubbish. what are the mac addresses and why would they be banned
thanks
Every communication device has a MAC address (bluetooth, WiFi, ethernet), that they authenticate with. Similar to an IP address, but unique to the device. The is usually a translation between IP address to MAC address that occurs to route traffic properly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address
A malicious user or program may have accessed your network and listed the devices as banned, but a factory reset would have cleared the banned list.
Does your laptop/iPhone detect other wireless networks? Maybe in your neighborhood or the next time you go out to a store/restaurant see if a list pops up. To see if it specific to your router or to the devices. Maybe even ask a neighbor/friend if it would be okay to test connecting your iPhone to their WiFi as you are having issues with your router.
There is also a possibility that WiFi was disabled on the devices by someone, to my knowledge there isn't a way to corrupt WiFi on the iPhone - but am pretty sure it is possible. On a PC however there a number of ways a malicious user could change drivers/registry settings to disable/block access via WiFi.
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