I recently had my BT Broadband upgraded to FTTP (Fibre to the Premises). I get very fast down/up speeds on my iMac connected by Ethernet. However, since the upgrade, my iPad over wifi has become very slow and I frequently get a failed connection due to an NSURL Error Domain saying the domain cannot be found. When I click Try Again it works. Does anyone know the answer to this please? It occurs using both Firefox and Chrome.
iPad Pro, iOS 13
Did the change involve replacing the router or just an adapter outboard of the router? If the router was swapped out, it may be set to use/announce a different (inferior) set of domain name servers. That can cause the NSURL errors and can slow down initial connections.
If using BT, it would perhaps be helpful if you could confirm whether you are a Residential or Business customer - as this will impact the advice/strategies that can be offered. BT “manage” these two customer groups - and their broadband router - differently.
I strongly suspect that your issue may have a DNS issue. If so, the problem can be tackled in a variety of ways - but is largely influenced by the answer to my previous question.
If you have a BT Business Hub (Router) you might try changing the Router’s DNS Server addresses, from the BT-defaults, to that of your chosen DNS provider. This will largely circumvent the BT DNS-derived “filtering” infrastructure that can significantly affect network performance. If the default DNS settings are overridden configured in this manner, your devices will automatically derive both their IP address and DNS settings over DHCP.
If your have a BT Residential Home Hub (Router), you’ll likely not be able to change the Router DNS Settings - as for Residential customers these settings are not exposed within the Router UI. If this is the case, we have to use different strategies...
If you have a separate WiFi Router connected to your BT Home Hub, you may be able to configure this to act as a DHCP server. If so, you should be able to configure your choice of DNS servers.
If you don’t have a separate WiFi Router, you can resort to setting your choice of DNS servers locally on each of your devices. On your iPad:
Settings > WiFi > [Your Network SSID] - tap the “i” icon, then - Configure DNS > Manual
Now, update the automatically configured DNS server addresses - deleting or adding entries as necessary.
For this exercise - and for general use - I recommend the use of Quad9 as your DNS Provider. Other providers are available (e.g., OpenDNS, Cloudflare etc.), but Quad9 provide “safe” high availability Recursive DNS.
Here are the Quad9 DNS server addresses:
9.9.9.9
149.112.112.112
2620:fe::fe (note the double colon - that’s not a mistake)
Hopefully, this information will be helpful to you and resolve the problem. Please let us know how you get on.
Hello,
Please visit Speedtest.net from your iPad and share its results to this post. Is this the case with all devices connected to your home's Wi-Fi network?
If using BT, it would perhaps be helpful if you could confirm whether you are a Residential or Business customer - as this has some impact upon the advice/strategies that can be offered. BT “manage” these two customer groups - and their broadband router - differently.
Wifi on iPad with Fibre Broadband
