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iPhone should support Cisco VPN protocol IPsec

J

johnbro23

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 12, 2004
770
0
Pittsburgh, PA
Everyone that goes to Penn State University that gets an iPhone is probably going to be disappointed when they first try out their phone on campus. The WiFi coverage here is very good, covering over half of the entire campus. However, Penn State requires a not-so-common protocol from Cisco called IPsec. iPhone supports L2TP and PPTP, but not the third, less ubiquitous Cisco protocol.

Has anyone else had this problem trying to connect to a Cisco WiFi network? What can be done to make iPhone work with this network?
 
Our campus network is the same. University of Manchester, UK.

Another reason why wifi isn't a good alternative to a HSDPA equipped iphone.
 
Sobe said:
what happens if you use your own access point via b/g router, would that work in the area of that point's coverage?
Click to expand...

That's impractical, even if it was allowed. You wouldn't be able to roam the campus on WiFi, you'd have to be in range of the router you set up.
 
johnbro23 said:
That's impractical, even if it was allowed. You wouldn't be able to roam the campus on WiFi, you'd have to be in range of the router you set up.
Click to expand...

It is exactly the set up that most non-university bound people have -- wifi at home and EDGE outside of it, save for hotspots.

Would it be preferable to have wifi everywhere? of course, but I would be pretty content with wifi in and around my dorm and EDGE elsewhere.
 
I posted this on Apple's Support forum:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1048130

Any way to make this message more visible? I doubt the Apple Employees who peruse the forums don't have much say in product development, so I doubt anything will happen just by posting in their forums.

I thought this was a very valid point I made that I left out of my original MR post:

Please consider this excerpt from an Apple press release:

"...Cisco and Apple will explore opportunities for interoperability in the areas of security, and consumer and enterprise communications."
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/02/21iphone.html
 
Sobe said:
It is exactly the set up that most non-university bound people have -- wifi at home and EDGE outside of it, save for hotspots.

Would it be preferable to have wifi everywhere? of course, but I would be pretty content with wifi in and around my dorm and EDGE elsewhere.
Click to expand...

I'm really only in my dorm to sleep and study. Half of my time on campus is spent in classes or hanging out on campus, which is mostly all within range of the WiFi network.
 
johnbro23 said:
Any way to make this message more visible? I doubt the Apple Employees who peruse the forums don't have much say in product development, so I doubt anything will happen just by posting in their forums.
Click to expand...
http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

1-800-MY-iPHONE might work, too. I complained about my iPhone's signal going from 5 bars to no service and then back to 5 bars, and the Apple guy there said he'd submit feedback directly to the engineers about it.
 
aristobrat said:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

1-800-MY-iPHONE might work, too. I complained about my iPhone's signal going from 5 bars to no service and then back to 5 bars, and the Apple guy there said he'd submit feedback directly to the engineers about it.
Click to expand...

This is the response I got from an Apple employee on their forums:

Apple Discussions are primarily a user to user support forums. Some Apple Employees, like myself, post here as Apple users helping other users.

If you would like to send feedback to Apple requesting a feature be added you can do so by going to http://www.apple.com/feedback/

However, IPSec is a type of encryption which can be used with L2TP, and is supported by the iPhone.

This article has more information on the configurations of L2TP/IPSec that is supported:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305723


If Penn State uses a Cisco product to deploy their WiFi network, then it is just a matter of Penn State changing their settings...is this correct?
 
IPsec on iPhone

JohnBro23 - Yes that is correct...IPSec is a Encryption Protocol supported on Cisco VPN solutions such as the one used at the school. L2TP is not supported as a standalone protocol due to security vulnerabilities that allowed 'man in middle attacks'. So that being said Cisco supports L2TP but only via an IPSec tunnel. IPSec is also a standard within the networking industry used by all of its competitors with interoperability even between the different vendor devices at this point. IPSec is also the most widely used form of VPN, so I'm not in the least bit surprised that the school is using it to protect their network. I also checked the apple iphone site as I am in process of deciding on my next phone and found IPSec over L2TP as supported, there may have been a firmware update since you purchased yours...?
Check the link below...in general now that you've had the phone for a bit what do you think?

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305723
 
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