Israel's iPad WiFi weirdness

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 19 April 2010 11:58

Your IT - Mobility

Israel's iPad injunction over Wi-Fi issues is baffling the international community, including Israelis in Israel's highly developed technology sector who are itching to develop new iPad apps and have a real iPad to immediately test them on, rather than relying on SDKs and emulated environments.

Along with Icelandic volcanoes causing air traffic chaos, Israel is adding to iPad-carrying air-travellers' woes by banning the importation of US iPads, whether by Israelis or tourists who have declared their iPads or who have had them discovered by customs officials.

The banning is said to be over the Wi-Fi capabilities of US iPads, which as iTWire's own Stephen Withers explains is due to 'slightly different' Wi-Fi standards between the US and Europe.

Stephen says in his article that: 'Israel uses the same standards as Europe, but these are slightly different from those prevailing in the US. European standards allow the use of additional channels in the 2.4GHz band (no problem there), but restrict the equivalent isotropically radiated power (EIRP) to 20 dBm (100 mW).'

However, according to the Wall Street Journal, not only does the iPad have the same Wi-Fi chip as the current iPhone 3GS, an Apple spokesperson also told the WSJ that the 'iPad complies with international industry standards for Wi-Fi specifications."

The WSJ also quoted analyst Richard Doherty stating that if Israel is 'paranoid about the iPad then they should be paranoid about BlackBerrys and the iPhone', and that the decision "seems to have no technical reason."

The WSJ noted that Israel had also originally delayed the iPhone's availability in Israel, with Israelis complaining that their nation was being unfairly subject to delays by the Israeli government, and with Israelis being such gadget loving people, some of Israel's citizens - and tourists - view the bans and delays as very puzzling - and very annoying.

There is speculation that the Wi-Fi frequencies in use may somehow interfere with Israeli military equipment, but if that's the case, you'd have to ask why the Israeli military would ever sanction military equipment that could be affected by technologies using US Wi-Fi standards, which could be innocently imported by Israeli citizens or not-so-innocently imported by terrorists in neighbouring regions.

Given that this seems incredibly implausible, as Israel is never one to take its military defences lightly, no-one really knows why iSrael is causing an iPad iStorm in an iTeacup, except that it iS.

However, as the international launch date of the iPad draws ever closer, with more countries after the first non-US countries to follow thereafter, affected Israelis and tourists will undoubtedly pass through the i of this particular iStorm and out the other side to hopefully enjoy full access to Apple's latest magical and revolutionary iWonder without too many further delays.