Nice points and well heeded. This is indeed my access point, which I have since tightened right up. I knew the config of network so filesharing was ok, there was/is a domain. But my point really was, if i can't connect to internet and other machines, and I know the state of network, and i'm sitting in the same room, how can anyone else!!

I gained an IP from ap, attempts to access the Internet were shortlived timeouts and no filesharing/browsing - even with the known IPs and computernames of hosts on my network, on the same subnet

My confusion still is if I was doing something wrong, and I had to have been, as an unsecure ap is as has been said above. In a nutshell, i haven't found it possible to connect to Internet or browse my network, even though I have an IP from an unsecure AP