iPhone overload brings down Duke network

Update: According to Engadget, the University has absolved the iPhone for their unexplained network problems. The overall question of our nation's system capacity and its ability to handle rich information in times of maximum useage remains an open question in my mind, however.

Like Newton, Duke's internet has apparently been struck by an Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL). In this case, Apple's iPhone. According to an AP story, students and faculty using the new device have brought down the school's wireless network, locking it up for up to ten minutes at a time. And this is in summer, when only a relatively handful of students are on campus.

A school's spokesman said that there are 100-150 such phones registered on the network, but even one of them could cause the system indigestion.

Duke, while huge in basketball, has a very small student class; only 6,197 undergraduates attended in the fall of 2006. It is, however, one of the pricier schools in the country, and so might be expected to have a disproportionate number of students who can afford the iPhone.

The problem isn't new. During the heyday of music swapping, a number of universities had to cap student access due to system overload. Nonetheless, large universities such as Ohio State are probably scrambling today to check bandwidth capacity.

What will happen in an emergency, say another 9/11, if thousands of people are attempting to access the internet? Can our existing systems handle the load?

Welcome to the age of rich content!