When there are two wireless networks with the same ESSID in range, KNetworkManager provides no indication of this and no way to select which one to connect to (doing so by channel would have been insufficient as in my case both networks were on the same default channel 6). When trying to connect it also seems to have selected the network with the lower signal strength, which is obviously a bad choice. This is the edited output from a manual iwlist scan showing two APs, in Cell 01 and Cell 05, with the same ESSID and Channel: wlan0 Scan completed : Cell 01 - Address: 00:12:17:34:1F:D4 Channel:6 Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6) Quality=60/70 Signal level=-50 dBm Encryption key:off ESSID:"linksys" Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s Bit Rates:6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s Mode:Master Extra:tsf=000000d41ddf656f Extra: Last beacon: 3170ms ago IE: Unknown: 00076C696E6B737973 IE: Unknown: 010882848B962430486C IE: Unknown: 030106 IE: Unknown: 2A0100 IE: Unknown: 2F0100 IE: Unknown: 32040C121860 IE: Unknown: DD06001018020105 Cell 05 - Address: 00:13:10:20:20:2B Channel:6 Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6) Quality=22/70 Signal level=-88 dBm Encryption key:on ESSID:"linksys" Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s Bit Rates:6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s 36 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s Mode:Master Extra:tsf=000000025a10217f Extra: Last beacon: 3290ms ago IE: Unknown: 00076C696E6B737973 IE: Unknown: 010482848B96 IE: Unknown: 030106 IE: Unknown: 0406000200000000 IE: Unknown: 050400010000 IE: Unknown: 2A0100 IE: Unknown: 32080C1218243048606C KNetworkManager only showed one network named "linksys", and the following syslog extract shows that it was trying to associate with the weaker of the two networks since the MAC address shown is that of the second AP: Nov 24 07:44:43 Hal NetworkManager[661]: (wlan0): link timed out. Nov 24 07:44:45 Hal wpa_supplicant[793]: Trying to associate with 00:13:10:20:20:2b (SSID='linksys' freq=2437 MHz) Nov 24 07:44:45 Hal NetworkManager[661]: (wlan0): supplicant connection state: scanning -> associating Nov 24 07:44:45 Hal kernel: [ 1166.317523] wlan0: direct probe to 00:13:10:20:20:2b (try 1/3) Nov 24 07:44:45 Hal kernel: [ 1166.510081] wlan0: direct probe to 00:13:10:20:20:2b (try 2/3) Nov 24 07:44:45 Hal kernel: [ 1166.710097] wlan0: direct probe to 00:13:10:20:20:2b (try 3/3) Nov 24 07:44:45 Hal kernel: [ 1166.910088] wlan0: direct probe to 00:13:10:20:20:2b timed out Nov 24 07:44:55 Hal wpa_supplicant[793]: Authentication with 00:13:10:20:20:2b timed out. Nov 24 07:44:55 Hal NetworkManager[661]: (wlan0): supplicant connection state: associating -> disconnected Nov 24 07:44:55 Hal NetworkManager[661]: (wlan0): supplicant connection state: disconnected -> scanning Nov 24 07:44:58 Hal wpa_supplicant[793]: Trying to associate with 00:13:10:20:20:2b (SSID='linksys' freq=2437 MHz) Nov 24 07:44:58 Hal NetworkManager[661]: (wlan0): supplicant connection state: scanning -> associating Nov 24 07:44:58 Hal kernel: [ 1180.035772] wlan0: direct probe to 00:13:10:20:20:2b (try 1/3) Nov 24 07:44:59 Hal kernel: [ 1180.230252] wlan0: direct probe to 00:13:10:20:20:2b (try 2/3) Nov 24 07:44:59 Hal kernel: [ 1180.430100] wlan0: direct probe to 00:13:10:20:20:2b (try 3/3) Nov 24 07:44:59 Hal kernel: [ 1180.630094] wlan0: direct probe to 00:13:10:20:20:2b timed out Nov 24 07:45:00 Hal NetworkManager[661]: Activation (wlan0/wireless): association took too long. Nov 24 07:45:00 Hal NetworkManager[661]: (wlan0): device state change: 5 -> 6 (reason 0) Nov 24 07:45:00 Hal NetworkManager[661]: Activation (wlan0/wireless): asking for new secrets Nov 24 07:45:00 Hal NetworkManager[661]: (wlan0): supplicant connection state: associating -> disconnected Nov 24 07:45:15 Hal NetworkManager[661]: (wlan0): link timed out.