New MacBook line Can't connect to Wi-Fi through Cisco Access Points. Unacceptable.

[bbotte]

SO I took my new $2500 screensaver (MacBook Air) to work and discovered that after talking to IT here. That my new MB Air will not be able to connect to our Wi-Fi. Because Cisco Access points will not assign a IP to the Airport card. They simply just do not respond to the new MacBook line. Yes accross the board. I work at a 20K student college, and this will be the first Quarter "Winter Quarter" comming up that Students will be bringing in new MacBook Laptops. My IT people tell me there is nothing they can do. Anyone else have this issue at their work or School?

And and before some one asks: I can use the thing at home and at friends houses no Problem.

 

[justit]

Not really sure it's MBA related. Are there any macs that do work on this cisco network? Is the cisco handing out the DNS or is it from their server?

Worse case scenario, run boot camp to try and get a true PC MAC (not macintosh) address. VMware and Paralells may give you conflicts but try running in Host-Only Networking.

 

[bbotte]

I was told Mine is the first that they have seen that a "work around" Does not Work.

I was told that the way it works is:

the Air says I'm here.
the Access point says do you want this IP address?
The Air is supposed to say Yes I want that IP.
Then the Acess Point says here is your IP.

Some where either the Access Point or Air doesn't respond so no IP is assigned and the Air Assigns it's own "private" IP. (Self Assigned) Which will not work.

 

[justit]

From what you describe this is definitely not an MBA issue but rather the ability (or inability) of the cisco to hand out dynamic IP addresses. Mac OSX works perfect in a PC networked environment. If the cisco is assigning IP address then make sure the Network setting on the MBA are set to DHCP. You'll need to google and get further details if the network uses IPv4 / IPv6.

The good news is that you are not the first to connect to a cisco access point, this problem was solved by apple years ago.

Here's a link to what may be your problem, scroll to the bottom:
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Apple/Hardware/Apple_Laptop/Q_23187516.html

 

[arimathea]

SO I took my new $2500 screensaver (MacBook Air) to work and discovered that after talking to IT here. That my new MB Air will not be able to connect to our Wi-Fi. Because Cisco Access points will not assign a IP to the Airport card. They simply just do not respond to the new MacBook line. Yes accross the board. I work at a 20K student college, and this will be the first Quarter "Winter Quarter" comming up that Students will be bringing in new MacBook Laptops. My IT people tell me there is nothing they can do. Anyone else have this issue at their work or School?

And and before some one asks: I can use the thing at home and at friends houses no Problem.

I work at a company that only has Cisco access points and have never had a problem connecting any Mac laptop to a Cisco AP. I think there is a problem with the configuration of your access points or your laptop.

 

[ValientHimself]

IT workers are also notoriously lazy, especially when it comes to Apple products, and they are giving you a cop out answer so that they don't have to do any work.

For my law school final exams, we have special software that is Windows only on which to take our exams. Now if I wanted to, I could completely wipe and reformat my Macbook's hard drive, install Windows and the software and take the tests, but my school's IT department would still not support my doing so. In the event of Windows crashing on me during the exam, I will be SOL. However, kids that have a dell badge instead of a fruit on their computers will be given a school owned laptop in order to complete the test, even though the internal components are exactly the same.

It's just something you get used to as an Apple user. Most IT departments are not going to go out of their way to help you, and often will actually work against you because a lot of IT workers have a bias against Apple products. Such is life.

 

[MH01]

IT workers are also notoriously lazy, especially when it comes to Apple products, and they are giving you a cop out answer so that they don't have to do any work.

For my law school final exams, we have special software that is Windows only on which to take our exams. Now if I wanted to, I could completely wipe and reformat my Macbook's hard drive, install Windows and the software and take the tests, but my school's IT department would still not support my doing so. In the event of Windows crashing on me during the exam, I will be SOL. However, kids that have a dell badge instead of a fruit on their computers will be given a school owned laptop in order to complete the test, even though the internal components are exactly the same.

It's just something you get used to as an Apple user. Most IT departments are not going to go out of their way to help you, and often will actually work against you because a lot of IT workers have a bias against Apple products. Such is life.

Its not actually the world vrs mac users, if they do not support apple products, they have no obligation nor training to assist you. The reason most IT departments will not help you is cause they have no idea how to support a mac. Its like bringing in a Honda motorbike into a Toyota garage and asking them to fix a noise coming from the engine....

Also wait till you get out of university ..... it gets worse ..... most big businesses are very much windows based.

BTW, You could just run the windows software in VMware or through Bootcamp. You can have both OS systems on your mac, they can help you out once you are running windows.

 

[Heinekev]

I work at a company that only has Cisco access points and have never had a problem connecting any Mac laptop to a Cisco AP. I think there is a problem with the configuration of your access points or your laptop.

Agreed. I'm a network engineer at a very large enterprise, we have Cisco Access Points deployed globally, as well as macbooks and macbook airs. No issues with wireless and macbooks anywhere.

 

[ValientHimself]

Its not actually the world vrs mac users, if they do not support apple products, they have no obligation nor training to assist you. The reason most IT departments will not help you is cause they have no idea how to support a mac. Its like bringing in a Honda motorbike into a Toyota garage and asking them to fix a noise coming from the engine....

Also wait till you get out of university ..... it gets worse ..... most big businesses are very much windows based.

BTW, You could just run the windows software in VMware or through Bootcamp. You can have both OS systems on your mac, they can help you out once you are running windows.

I was not trying to say that they should be obligated or trained to assist mac users, or that it is a mac user against the world type of situation. What I was saying was that often times IT departments will blatantly lie about Mac issues, which I suspect is what happened with the OP's IT department.

As to the other issues, I have been out in the business world previously, and a lack of support in that realm is much less of an issue than in a University setting. Typically in a work environment, you are provided with a computer. In a University setting, that is not the case and people are bringing in all sorts of computers. Thus, I would expect a bit more of a robust IT department in a university setting.

I do run Paralells, that wasn't my complaint. My complaint is that even though the internals of my macbook are the exact same as the guy setting next to me using an HP/Dell/Toshiba, if the Windows OS on my computer crashes, I receive no support while he does simply because the manufacturer of mine is Apple. In my view that is inexcusable. I wonder if it is a coincidence that my university has a partnership offer for cheap computers through Dell?

After all of that text, my point really is not that IT departments should learn to support Apple products, it's that they should learn to stop lying about their lack of knowledge of Apple products.