Is peer-to-peer Wi-Fi possible in a captive network?

Question

I know that peer-to-peer employs a Bonjour connection between iOS devices, according to this post: peer-to-peer Wi-Fi . However, I have not been able to get this to work between devices in a captive network, such as Starbucks or Panera Bread.

If you have been able to establish a connection between devices in this environment, please provide some help with code! Thank you!

My goal is to allow communication even when service is poor, and to avoid the data plan altogether.

Answer 1

Many public hotspot networks will be configured with client isolation. This prevents traffic directly between clients on that network.

The theory is that users probably only want to access the Internet and that some users may not have implemented appropriate security on their devices.

Client isolation ensures that you won't see, for example, the file shares of other users in the cafe and that an attacker can't launch an attack on possibly insecure devices belonging to other users on the network.

If the network is configured with client isolation there is nothing you can do in your app to achieve direct peer-peer connectivity. You can use an Internet connected server to relay the communication between the peers