“Apple Inc.’s flashy new iPhones may be jamming parts of the wireless network at Duke University, where technology officials worked with the company Wednesday to fix problems before classes begin next month,” Mike Baker reports for The Associated Press.
“Bill Cannon, a Duke technology spokesman, said an analysis of traffic found that iPhones flooded parts of the campus’ wireless network with access requests — 10,000 times per second — freezing parts of the system for 10 minutes at a time,” Baker reports. “While the network has 100 to 150 iPhones registered, a single iPhone was powerful enough to cause the problem, Cannon said ‘The scale of the problem is very small right now,’ said Cannon, adding that the school is working with Apple and Cisco Systems Inc., Duke’s network equipment provider, to pinpoint the problem. ‘But the more iPhones that are around, the more they could be knocking on the door for access.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Cisco. Ironic.
Related articles: Apple and Cisco explore iPhone compatibility – April 18, 2007
Analysts: Apple tops Cisco in iPhone agreement – February 22, 2007
Cisco and Apple reach agreement on ‘iPhone’ trademark – February 21, 2007
Baker continues, “Ashok Agrawala, a computer science professor at the University of Maryland, speculated that both the phone and Duke’s network are to blame for the glitches at the university. Agrawala said the phones could be struggling to regain a connection with a wireless access point, possibly when a wireless hotspot hands off to another.”
“Natalie Kerris, an Apple spokeswoman, said the company is working with Duke to quickly resolve the issue but didn’t know details or the source of the problem,” Baker reports. “Greg James, associate director of data networking at nearby North Carolina State University, said Wednesday that the school hasn’t noticed any issues at its campus in Raleigh despite usual monitoring of all wireless access points.”
Full article here.
Obvious first question: is it one or a handful of (potentially faulty) iPhones causing the problem or are all iPhones capable of flooding Duke’s Wi-Fi network?
The opinion on slashdot yesterday seemed to be that it isn’t possible for a wireless client to cause this kind of problem unless the network is misconfigured.
It’s FUD, I tell you! FUD!!!!
“MacDailyNews Take: Obvious first question: is it one or a handful of (potentially faulty) iPhones causing the problem or are all iPhones capable of flooding Duke’s Wi-Fi network?”
Uh … duh. It’s so obvious that there is NO doubt about 2 dozen people in Apple, and Cisco, and at Duke too, have already asked it/answered it/proceeding to the next question.
If you guys can’t come up with better ‘takes’ than that, why not just keep quiet.
Maybe there using Textalution so much!
If it were solely due to an Apple design flaw it would be happening all over. It isn’t. So we’re left with:
a) There’s a faulty iPhone at Duke. (But wouldn’t it also cause chaos when the owner left the campus?)
b) There’s a failure somewhere in the Duke network. (Misconfiguration or breakdown.)
c) Something unique in the Duke network configuration wasn’t anticipated by Apple and it’s a design flaw specific to this combination.
Since we’re not hearing about this happening on numerous networks, it’s probably an isolated problem with one phone or one network. We will hear about this instance over and over and over again.
One more reason to sell AAPL.
Seems to me, the access points are just having trouble keeping up with all handing over of ip address when a student enters an different part of the campus. as Ashok Agrawala had said. You get a laptop and try walking around and see if it doesnt have the same problem. I have done it with our wireless hand scanners I support where I work. If I go into another area if pretty much tries to reconnect to the network. I have only 4, but if you talking 150 phones trying to constantly keep a connection as people move all around campus I can see how this will bog down the system.
It is quite odd that this issue is only occurring at Duke and not at any other university or corporation in the country. I’m sure the problem will come down to something configured incorrectly on Duke’s network.
This is going to make things even more interesting the next time we host a stripper
MW – school
C’mon! MDN your doing that on purpose!
Hey Odyssey67,
I don’t see anything particularly brilliant coming out of your big mouth either.
Based on recent personal experience at Duke using a laptop wirelessly, its Duke’s network. It was very unreliable in June in the dorms before any iPhones were released.
Go Pack!!
Why not blame the Zune’s WiFi capability?
Oh. . . never mind.
iPHONE freak out, 1984
Russian hackers found a built-in function which sends all data from an iPhone to a specified web-server. Contacts from a phonebook, SMS, recent calls, history of Safari browser – all your personal information can be stolen and more!
http://vsiphone.blogspot.com/2007/07/iphone-has-built-in-spyware-module.html
mdn word “beyond” all reasonable explination
lol
I go to Duke and I bring the iPhone to class daily.
lol and my security word is “students”
—– iPhone, Feel the POWER, — Bit-h!
Sorry, that just sort of snuck out.
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I bet the web server ‘spy ware’ thing the russians found is actually the protocols for synching the iPhone to your Mac. Doubt its sending data to any outside source.
mike, did you notice anything else on that site? Like all the anti-iPhone links? Is Verizon funding this site?
So Cisco gets a heap more biz out of the iPhone, especially its numbers ramp up, and certain wireless network systems across the country need upgrading.
… Maybe, I don’t know anything about this tech stuff.
quote
Baker continues, “Ashok Agrawala, a computer science professor at the University of Maryland, speculated that both the phone and Duke’s network are to blame for the glitches at the university. Agrawala said the phones could be struggling to regain a connection with a wireless access point, possibly when a wireless hotspot hands off to another.”
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LorD 1776 says: “Hey Odyssey67, I don’t see anything particularly brilliant coming out of your big mouth either.”
Hmm. Well, I don’t claim to be brilliant, but I can say something based on observation and common sense:
You’re a lame suck-up.
There … how’s that?
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Flaws in the iphone crashes network. Now you know why experts recommend not allowing this overpriced toy on a corporate network. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Who knows how many critical bugs are in this 1.0 product. Apple does not have a good reputation of putting out new products without horrible defects. Back to the drawing board Apple!
could someone please tell me how to get all these cool emoticons (smiling faces and all)
@Mac Realist.
“back to the drawing board”
Really, you think Apple ever leaves the drawing board?
Whoa, what a slice of reality that is.
Oh, and another thing, since I am the original Road Warrior, but not the only one, we are talking about Duck University.
Do you hear about other Wireless networks out there going bonkers (listens to the crickets)?
Right, now remember this is Duek University, the same one G.B. Trudeau used to write about through his comic strip “Doonesbury.”
Yeah yeah, defective phones, improper network…relax everyone will be on top of it tomorrow.
Now we will see if security through obscurity will work. The iPhone will certainly not be obscure. This will be an excellent opportunity for it to fit within the technological ecology. Sure there will be growing pains, then gains.
The gains are looking good for the MDN word “future”.