WifiNigel

Sometimes you can walk on to a customer site and the customer may have iPad devices using the WiFi network. They may also have a range of different models, so that it is difficult to perhaps know the WiFi support capabilities available among their devices. In summary, to-date all iPads support 802.11 a/b/g and 802.11n on both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. The 802.11n support is exclusively single stream, but the channel width that can be used has changed with recent models. Both the 4th Gen. iPad and iPad Mini support 40MHz channel widths on the 5GHz band. It is quite difficult to determine which version of iPad you have just by a cursory glance at the device. A very good way of determining the device type you are working with is to check the model number on the back of the iPad. It's a little tricky to read due to the small size of the etched-in font, but with a bit of a squint, you can just about see it. Here is a picture taken from the rear of my own iPad 2: By us...

I've been taking a look at the Bonjour protocol in general recently due to some requirements I have been looking at for customers. The availability of Bonjour gateways from the likes of Cisco and Aerohive certainly make things a lot easier to provide access to Bonour services without having to jump through lots of multicast-over-wireless hoops. One area of particular focus has been Apple TV. It seems to be quite a popular device with execs who want to be able to mirror their iPad on to a meeting room projector. There are some great tools that allow you to browse the services that are available on a network. I have been using  Bonjour Browser for Windows , though other Mac equivalents are also available. When looking at the services available from an Apple TV, I see the following services advertised: _airplay._tcp. _raop._tcp. _sleep-proxy._udp. _touch-able._tcp. _appletv-v2._tcp I was interested to know what each of these services does. So, here it w...

This is just a quick note about some Apple services you may see advertised using mDNS when you are implementing a Bonjour gateway on your wireless network. I've been investigating which services might be visible when the iTunes application is being run on computers that are connected to the wireless network. From my testing, I have only been able to find 2 services you may come across when using iTunes ( this just considers the iTunes application and does not include any other services from Apple TV, printers etc .): _daap._tcp.local. _apple-mobdev._tcp.local. _daap._tcp.local. This service becomes available when you choose the option to share your library on the local network Share library on local network: The service advertisements are generated by the iTunes software on the computer (and hence originate from the computer itself) to be detected by other devices/computers across the network _apple-mobdev._tcp.local. This service becomes visible when...

I'm documenting this for my own reference as much as anything, to avoid having to look this information up (yet again). (This description assumes that the use-case is for a guest network, but will apply to any layer-3 authenticated wireless network) It is a common occurrence on Cisco wireless networks (using a WLC of some type) to have complaints from guest users that they have to keep logging back in to the guest network after their device has gone in to sleep mode. They are often put in to sleep when they are enveloped in some type of holder or covering system that has a built-in magnet to make them sleep when they are not in use (this is very typical on iPad holders/covers). The reason for the annoying issue of having to log back in to the guest network is that the WLC has a user idle timeout setting which expires (by default) after 5 minutes. So, when a device is put in to sleep mode, the WLC will not hear from it for a while and then after  5 minutes will termi...