Windows Mobile 7 doesn't connect to hidden wireless networks
Windows Phone 7 lacks the ability to connect to hidden wireless networks, a significant limitation for enterprise environments.
I just purchased my Win7 Mobile phone. Honestly I’ve been waiting for this device to come out for over a year and I was pretty stoked that they are finally released.
The Problem
One of the cool things about modern mobile devices is that they can use other available networks besides just eating up your 3G data plan. This isn’t an issue for me at home, on campus or in most coffee shops since they have the wireless open or I have the shared key. This is not the case at my place of employment, since it is our policy to keep the wireless networks from broadcasting the SSID.
There are a few reasons for this and security really isn’t on that list. We are right across the street from a few retail stores, a hospital and some of our locations are in shopping malls – We see enough SSID broadcasts.
Microsoft’s Position
Microsoft does have a blog post about why NOT to hide your SSID, however their reasoning is based on security and ignoring any other reasons for hiding a SSID.
Windows Phone 7 Forum Discussion
The Real Issue
This is so far the ONLY mobile device I’ve heard of or seen that cannot connect to a hidden network. There are enterprise customers that I’m sure have a standard to hide the SSID besides us for very valid reasons besides a security façade.
This isn’t just the inability to connect, you can’t even type in a SSID and key so I can’t even pre-stage or configure a network if I needed to say… Send a device to one of my executives at a conference or remote meeting.
Conclusion
Bad choice Microsoft, and pulling the security card is another bad call. Enterprise environments often have legitimate operational reasons for hiding SSIDs that go beyond security theater. The inability to manually configure hidden networks is a significant limitation that affects real-world business use cases.