On Fri, 28 Feb 2014 23:34:48 -0500, nospam wrote:

how many of those could you reliably establish a connection and then do
something with it?

merely showing up in a list doesn't mean much if it's not usable.

This is a good and valid point.

I had also spoken (complained) to two people about this,
one of whom is actually my ISP, who said that he gets
frustrated when a customer can't connect to his wall and
ceiling mounted access points that he installs in the larger houses.

I trust his experienced judgement when he said he called them
iCrap. It was also his view that the iPad/iPhone equipment had
lousy radios (he called them "radios").

However, it would be nice to find a study that shows what
the true decibels of gain are for the iPad radio/antenna
combination, transmit power, and receive sensitivity.

Does Apple publish those numbers?

In article
hosting.com, Liam
O'Connor wrote:

how many of those could you reliably establish a connection and then do
something with it?

merely showing up in a list doesn't mean much if it's not usable.

This is a good and valid point.

I had also spoken (complained) to two people about this,
one of whom is actually my ISP, who said that he gets
frustrated when a customer can't connect to his wall and
ceiling mounted access points that he installs in the larger houses.

your isp installs wall mount access points?

usually they just give you a box and it sits on a table somewhere.

I trust his experienced judgement when he said he called them
iCrap. It was also his view that the iPad/iPhone equipment had
lousy radios (he called them "radios").

anyone who calls anything icrap is just a hater.

there is no evidence that ios devices have lousy radios.

However, it would be nice to find a study that shows what
the true decibels of gain are for the iPad radio/antenna
combination, transmit power, and receive sensitivity.

Does Apple publish those numbers?

no, but older ios devices could run a wifi analyzer app that showed
actual signal strength numbers.

On Sat, 01 Mar 2014 13:45:05 -0500, nospam wrote:

Does Apple publish those numbers?

no, but older ios devices could run a wifi analyzer app that showed
actual signal strength numbers.

That's a good idea for comparison between two devices in your hand.

But, what we really need for comparison purposes is the true transmit
power (in mW or dB), antenna gain (in dBi), & receiver sensitivity
(in dBm).

The FCC must have a record of these antenna and radio specs
because they are required by law for all devices sold in
the United States.

I'll see if I can figure out of the FCC database is available
to the public.

In article
hosting.com, Liam
O'Connor wrote:

Does Apple publish those numbers?

no, but older ios devices could run a wifi analyzer app that showed
actual signal strength numbers.

That's a good idea for comparison between two devices in your hand.

But, what we really need for comparison purposes is the true transmit
power (in mW or dB), antenna gain (in dBi), & receiver sensitivity
(in dBm).

which you'll never get for the base station. you may not even know
anything about the base station at all, other than it exists in the
building somewhere.

The FCC must have a record of these antenna and radio specs
because they are required by law for all devices sold in
the United States.

I'll see if I can figure out of the FCC database is available
to the public.

it's probably listed, but that's a lab test, not real world conditions.

the test is simple: connect to one or more of the networks listed in
android that are not listed in ios. do they work? if so, how well? how
reliable is it?

be sure to test a lot of them in many different locations to get an
overall idea of what is happening.

On Sat, 01 Mar 2014 13:45:05 -0500, nospam wrote:

anyone who calls anything icrap is just a hater.

Well, if you were in the business, and if it kept causing
you wasted service calls, you'd probably think differently.

there is no evidence that ios devices have lousy radios.

I wonder if the FCC reports are available to the public?

A typical PC has a radio of receiver sensitivity of
something like -85dBm, and a radio transmit power of
something like 50mW and antenna gain of something like 1dBi.

It would be interesting to see what specs iPads iPhones have.

your isp installs wall mount access points?
usually they just give you a box and it sits on a table somewhere.

He's a local WISP.

For a new customer, he comes to the house, and then sites
his antenna on your roof or on a mast in the back yard so that
it points to his access point, which can be 20 miles away.

Then he drills the holes to get his wires from outside to
the inside, to your home broadband router, where he plugs in
his radio power-over-ethernet (POE) power supply.

At that point, he can leave ... or ... you can ask him to
extend the WiFi signal in your house. Normally he installs
dome-shaped repeaters which look just like ceiling lamps.

So, "my" Wisp has been to every home, and knows all of us
intimately. I talk to him probably once every few months,
about something or other. And, to repeat, he has definite
opinions about his customers who bother him when they can't
get signal after he has installed these wifi extenders, and
he tells me that they always on Apple equipment.

It's just one anecdotal datapoint though.

I'd prefer to see the FCC report on the iPad specs.

On 2014-03-01 18:45:05 +0000, nospam said:

I trust his experienced judgement when he said he called them
iCrap. It was also his view that the iPad/iPhone equipment had
lousy radios (he called them "radios").

That is pure bull****. There are many reasons you may have poor wi-fi
such as channel interference from a neighbor or even from wireless
phones in your house. Apple is not the problem unless you just happen
to have defective equipment, and that is probably less likeley than for
any other manufacturer. Any device can have a defective part no
matter who makes it.

In article
hosting.com, Liam
O'Connor wrote:

anyone who calls anything icrap is just a hater.

Well, if you were in the business, and if it kept causing
you wasted service calls, you'd probably think differently.

problems when one device connects to another can be at either end or
both sides, and it's almost always a combination of both ends.

anyone who calls something icrap is not interested in actually fixing
anything. they just want to hate.

there is no evidence that ios devices have lousy radios.

I wonder if the FCC reports are available to the public?

http://transition.fcc.gov/oet/ea/fccid/

A typical PC has a radio of receiver sensitivity of
something like -85dBm, and a radio transmit power of
something like 50mW and antenna gain of something like 1dBi.

It would be interesting to see what specs iPads iPhones have.

here are some numbers, plus the fcc ids so you can look up all the gory
details:

http://www.revolutionwifi.net/2012/03/ipad-3-wi-fi-specifications.html
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4866269

your isp installs wall mount access points?
usually they just give you a box and it sits on a table somewhere.

He's a local WISP.

For a new customer, he comes to the house, and then sites
his antenna on your roof or on a mast in the back yard so that
it points to his access point, which can be 20 miles away.

oh, the entire thing is wireless. that's different.

i was thinking of a normal router that connects to dsl/fios/cable.

On Sat, 01 Mar 2014 23:40:52 -0500, nospam wrote:

here are some numbers, plus the fcc ids so you can look up all the gory
details:

http://www.revolutionwifi.net/2012/03/ipad-3-wi-fi-specifications.html
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4866269

Will check out and append to a separate thread on this topic!
thanks

On Sat, 01 Mar 2014 14:20:34 -0500, nospam wrote:

which you'll never get for the base station. you may not even know
anything about the base station at all, other than it exists in the
building somewhere.

This is a good point.
At home, we can get that information for our access point.
But not on the road at a public hotspot.

However, my Android phone, my Linux laptop, and my Windows PC
all will easily show me the receive strength of the access point.

For example, with InSSIDer freeware on the PC, or with Wigle
wardriving freeware on Android, I can easily export a csv
spreadsheet of all the access points found on any war drive.

I'm sure wardriving freeware exists on the iPad (although
Wigle doesn't seem to be there), so, I would think I could
put the iPad and Android device on the passenger seat of
the vehicle ... go for a drive ... and then easily compare
the received signal strength of hundreds of WiFi access
points.

Since I can easily log hundreds of access points in a drive
through a populated area, I would think that a look at the
data would show whether the Apple devices or Android devices
were habitually stronger or weaker.

Come to think of it, I think this would be a nice test since
I just googled and found WiFi-Where is apparently an equivalent
to the Wigle Android wardriving freeware...

http://www.threejacks.com/wifiwhere

On Sun, 2 Mar 2014 05:33:47 +0000 (UTC), Lewis wrote:

A lot of ISPs have extremely ****ty equipment.

My ISP *only* installs Ubiquiti equipment.
http://www.ubnt.com/customers

And *nobody* says Ubiquiti makes ****ty equipment!
http://community.ubnt.com/t5/custom/page/page-id/Forums

In article
dhosting.com, Liam
O'Connor wrote:

I'm sure wardriving freeware exists on the iPad (although
Wigle doesn't seem to be there), so, I would think I could
put the iPad and Android device on the passenger seat of
the vehicle ... go for a drive ... and then easily compare
the received signal strength of hundreds of WiFi access
points.

there used to be software to list wifi networks and the strengths, but
they used private apis and were pulled.

those who downloaded the apps could keep using it until ios 5, when the
private apis no longer worked at all.

at least one of those apps is on android, wifi analyzer.

Since I can easily log hundreds of access points in a drive
through a populated area, I would think that a look at the
data would show whether the Apple devices or Android devices
were habitually stronger or weaker.

Come to think of it, I think this would be a nice test since
I just googled and found WiFi-Where is apparently an equivalent
to the Wigle Android wardriving freeware...

http://www.threejacks.com/wifiwhere

one of the ones that no longer exist.

the first clue is it talks about ios 3.

nospam:
how many of those could you reliably establish a connection and then do
something with it?

merely showing up in a list doesn't mean much if it's not usable.

Liam O'Connor:
This is a good and valid point.

I had also spoken (complained) to two people about this,

One gets the impression from this thread that much of your speech
consists of complaints.

one of whom is actually my ISP, who said that he gets
frustrated when a customer can't connect to his wall and
ceiling mounted access points that he installs in the larger houses.

I trust his experienced judgement when he said he called them
iCrap. It was also his view that the iPad/iPhone equipment had
lousy radios

His "experienced judgement" has another name: his personal opinion. I
have a largish house that is situated on two acres and my Apple devices
have good connectivity all over the property.

(he called them "radios").

That would make sense. They are radios.

However, it would be nice to find a study that shows what
the true decibels of gain are for the iPad radio/antenna
combination, transmit power, and receive sensitivity.

Does Apple publish those numbers?

Seems as if Apple software and hardware are kicking your behind. I
wouldn't put up with it. I would move on and find another brand that
worked right for me.

--
I agree with almost everything that you have said and almost everything that
you will say in your entire life.

usenet *at* davidillig dawt cawm

On Sun, 02 Mar 2014 02:40:10 -0500, nospam wrote:

http://www.threejacks.com/wifiwhere
one of the ones that no longer exist.

Oh. I had not realized, until just now, when I read this
and then tried to find it in the app store, that wifiwhere
didn't exist anymore.

I'm surprised. What was so bad about it?

I recently used wigle wardriving software on Android and
all it did was log the positions and wifi SSIDs and
MAC addresses and security of access points.

Was WiFi Where pulled because of what it did, or, as you
noted, it perhaps used private APIs?

In article
dhosting.com, Liam
O'Connor wrote:

http://www.threejacks.com/wifiwhere
one of the ones that no longer exist.

Oh. I had not realized, until just now, when I read this
and then tried to find it in the app store, that wifiwhere
didn't exist anymore.

I'm surprised. What was so bad about it?

the wifi scanners used private apis which are not allowed in apps.

the private apis changed in ios 5, so those apps no longer work.

however, anyone who still has a device running ios 4 or earlier can
continue to use the apps if they downloaded them when they were
available.

On Sun, 02 Mar 2014 23:01:35 -0500, nospam wrote:

the wifi scanners used private apis which are not allowed in apps.

I see. It makes sense. Thanks for the explanation.