Getting network access

[morinookuni8919]

Hello everyone,
I am a bit confused. My step daughter was provided a laptop from her school.
Obviously, they have their own domain to connect to, I was thinking they would need to connect to my wifi to access their domain at the school.
Surprisingly, the laptop connects to the internet getting 10mbps download and 5mbps upload.

My question, how is this laptop able to connect to the school domain REMOTELY with no Ethernet cable or connecting to the home wifi at all?

Could it be a mobile hotspot like a cell phone? If so, I don't see any hotspot adapters for the signal, could it be built in?

The laptop is fell latitude 3150.

Ideas???

 

[USAFRet]

MERGED QUESTION
Question from morinookuni8919 : "Getting network access"

Hello everyone,
I am a bit confused. My step daughter was provided a laptop from her school.
Obviously, they have their own domain to connect to, I was thinking they would need to connect to my wifi to access their domain at the school.
Surprisingly, the laptop connects to the internet getting 10mbps download and 5mbps upload.

My question, how is this laptop able to connect to the school domain REMOTELY with no Ethernet cable or connecting to the home wifi at all?

Could it be a mobile hotspot like a cell phone? If so, I don't see any hotspot adapters for the signal, could it be built in?

The laptop is fell latitude 3150.

Ideas???

 

[asoroka]

what IP address is the computer using.

Is that IP address in your network range.

You could also try going to the following website

http://www.whatismyip.com

to see how the LT gets to the internet

 

[Solandri]

Mobile broadband cards (using 4G LTE cellular data) are still around. It's mostly businesses and schools which order laptops with them. But they're still a thing. It used to be the laptop needed a separate slot specifically for a WWAN card. But mini-PCIe and M.2 are generic enough that they can take either a WiFi or WWAN card. The laptop just needs the correct antennas for the type of card installed.

 

[jsmithepa]

Remote access to school is not automatic. Did school says you could? they would had given you precise instructions.

If it works this will take the form of: You (home) ---> Internet ---> School. Because both of you are connected to the Internet.

 

[morinookuni8919]

Hello everyone,
thank you for the answers.
asoroka, i am not sure of the IP address the laptop is using. I will check that and post that back when i can get a change to but that is a good point i should have checked.

solandri, that actually makes alot of sense, i did not see any antennas coming from the laptop. Could it be that it has antennas internally for this kind of setup?

Jsmithepa, the school didnt say anything to me or my step daughter on how it was setup. I am sure if i pushed for answer from the school i could get some but its not worth it that much to me, more of curiosity at this point. But when i was inspecting the laptop just tinkering with it, it was not connected to my wifi or plugged in with a ethernet cable, the laptop was not connected in any way at all connected to my home network, which is what confused me so much. but i was able to connect and surf the internet and even seen the it connected to the school domain. With that said, the IT admins for the school locked down the laptop so much i couldnt really do much investigation.

 

[jsmithepa]

the IT admins for the school locked down the laptop so much i couldnt really do much investigation.

This is typical. Basically the school doesn't want u to do whatever then have you change stuff around, something happens, THEN they have to support u to fix whatever.

You are lucky to even have Internet access, enjoy it.

But accessing school stuff from home? That is by authorization only, not automatic. I mean you can see the school's public website but not all access is granted. When the laptop is in-school, it's in a "safe" environment, but when it's at your home, you may as well be an hacker.

 

[morinookuni8919]

Hello Jsmithepa,
Thats kinda what i thought that it would be a "safe" environment, but i was able to access any website i could thing of (within reason of course). The only way to log into the laptop is by domain username and password, no local access sadly.
I think they allowed the laptops to have internet access at home so students can do homework or what ever and also for those who dont have internet access at home.

The school does have this laptop locked down time, no command prompt, no control panel, only file explorer that has this pc and desktop and downloads.

Got to be what solandri said about WWAN.