New Wi-Fi Blackberry Announced (Hope It's More Polite Than the iPhone)

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July 18, 2007

New Wi-Fi Blackberry Announced (Hope It's More Polite Than the iPhone)

Blackberry Cool is predictably verklempt about the new Blackberry 8820. Heck ... I own my Blackberry the same way I own a stapler and a lawnmower, which is to say "with no publicly expressed enthusiasm," and I'm a little verklempt about the thing.

The excitement-making part is the way the new model will support 802.11a/b/g. Especially for anyone suffering, like me, on AT&T/Cingular's lamentable EDGE network.

Yep ... that was a link to a review of the iPhone and how unfortunate it is that tired, slow AT&T is providing the cellular data. EDGE is pretty much EDGE on any device, though, and as Ars' reviewer noted, "whenever you're within range of a WiFi network that you can use, use it" to avoid EDGE "speeds [that] vary wildly between great and eye-stabbing."

I eagerly await dragging my trailing-edge self down to the Cingular store in a few years and picking one of these up.

And speaking of the iPhone and Wi-Fi, Duke University has an iPhone-related mystery on its hands. Network managers there say iPhones periodically flip their lids, flood the WLAN with ARP requests, and knock up to 30 APs off the net at a time. Apple's investigating. Early speculation is centering around users moving between APs on the network, though there's some debate about whether it's all Cisco's fault or Apple's.

Update (7/20): Duke doesn't sound so sure it's the iPhone and is promising to report on the matter by the end of the day. I'll update this entry with a link to whatever update ends up coming out.

Update 2 : As promised. Spoiler: It's Cisco's fault.