WiFi Speeds (iPhone 12 Pro Max)

There appears to be a know issue with iPhone 12 Pro Max (not sure about the other iPhone 12s). But mine and others are having issues ranging from maintaining activation on the cellular network to completely screwing up local Wi-Fi networks. Apple is certainly keeping quiet about this issue. I hope they fix it soon, because is has had a big impact on my work-from-home protocol because I rely heavily on my wi-fi for WFH. See links below for existing issue:

https://piunikaweb.com/2020/10/30/iphone-12-iphone-12-pro-experiencing-activation-issues-on-att-verizon-or-t-mobile-you-arent-alone/

iPhone 12 Pro losing activation - Apple Community

https://www.reddit.com/r/verizon/comments/jgqhr0/iphone_12_pro_activation_issues/

There are many more, but I'm not sure any have a fool-proof fix identified.

Oh wow you are correct! I have never seen this kind of Bluetooth firmware bug that would impact wifi speeds. Bluetooth and wifi are isolated I believe so this shouldn’t be happening. I can confirm that speeds increased not very significantly but did improve with Bluetooth completely off. I have iPhone 12 mini.

Someone with dual band WiFi could experiment and see if the iPhone 12 Pro Max WiFi speeds are only impacted when on 2.4GHz band. The iPhone XS Max and iPhone 7S Plus that I tested on the 2.4GHz WiFi band didn't seen to have any issues with slower speeds with bluetooth on. As these devices get more complicated and employ more RF frequencies issues may arise that degrade performance of certain functions.

Tut, your phone seeks out WiFi signals when WiFi is on, when it’s off it reverts to cellular signals for everything.

when you are away from WiFi its best to turn WiFi off as the phone is constantly looking for it, that’s why when you turn WiFi off sometimes things stabilize.

if I’m home, I turn airplane mode on so my phone works only on WiFi, when I’m out I turn both airplane off and WiFi off.

if you want a true speed test on your new 12, place it on airplane mode and turn WiFi in and your phone will rely solely on your WiFi internet signal. Lastly a true test of your WiFi signal should be on your 5g signal side of your router.

I have a dual band modem so I named one to identify the 5 GHz as that’s the real fast one! 2.4 MHZ maxes out at below 100 Mbps...

I've been working with apple support for a month( I still left ticket open in case we discover reproduce/behavior changes). I'll praise apple support rep for dedication in trying to understand behavior with me. However, even after upgrading internet 700Mbps to try to show the discrepencies (against older iPhoneX), I'm in same situation as last month. Better wifi speed does exagerate what we notice. The problem is it's just the test that shows this, its difficult to show an app having a problem so i left ticket open. I've even tried nuclear option of defaulting phone to factory / erasing/content/reset networking. I've since restored my backup but its essentially same to default. I'ts slower as i move away from each of the satellites(mesh/basement office), those actually test higher, even over the backhaul (1.7Gps), but i typically test near the RBK50 main router/living room (which should be able to handle 5GHZ speed each channel of which should support 866Mps in 802.11ac for satellites or main router. upload speeds no longer relavent to me since they dont expose an issue in 5-20Mbs range.

My take, after upgrading to 12 pro max, I no longer saw the 200-400Mbs speed i used to see on IphoneX in bedroom (200Mps spectrum cap), and after upgrading to 700Mbps spectrum cap, I typically only see 160-200Mbps bedroom, 200-300 living room, 400Mbs office. My gut explaination/feeling is upstairs worse because of 12 pro's less robust handling of interference that might be worse at main level (ground level) than my iphoneX had. all of which is moot because phone 12 works, just hard to demonstrate even though we clearly have more reason to believe its slow. I never suspected iphoneX or my dell laptop to ever be slow the same way, which I did convey to Support however without consistent numbers in reproduce it's so hard to get buy-in. They are just all over the place when i run a test on 12. and before upgrading or my laptop always consistent.

This is extremely frustrating..after spending so much for this phone! Please Apple do something!!

I literally have 3 devices standing side by side on my table:

1) iPhone 12 Pro Max

2) iPad Pro 11

3) Google Pixel XL 2

They are connected to the same network.

If I run speedtest (not at the same time, but in sequence) I have the following results:

1) 37.4 Mbps / 25,5Mbps (download/upload)

2) 88.3 Mbps / 30.6 Mbps

3) 89.4 Mbps / 30.6 Mbps

The server and apps are exactly the same. As you can see the iPad and the Pixel are pretty much giving the same results, but the iPhone is literally bad (and it feels sluggish also while browsing and in general usage).

Sadly, my network isn't broken,. in fact all devices connected to my network works fine from televisions to computers and laptops to android phones which gives me HD netflix videos, playing all at the same time... anyways the link given by Mr. Zvxahzier works for me regarding Private Address.

An update on my issue, I disabled wifi assist on this new replacement. Issue did not happen in morning as always (normally wifi wouldn't work at all, with signal 100%). Took till mid afternoon for the why to stop working(btw still connected and signal 100%). I immediately checked speeds on other devices (including an Xr on latest update), everything working fine and above +100Mbps. I called my ISP and had them do some troubleshooting, all setting on router set as they recommend. I turned off the phones wifi and re-enabled right away, instantly working at full speed. Again, I shouldn't need to jump through hoops to get wifi working on this phone on different networks, I shouldn't need to do anything special on wifi networks to make this iphone 12 Pro Max reliable(aka..just simply work). Nonetheless, I have a 3rd warranty replacement coming in the mail...

If your within a year of purchase(warranty period) or have AppleCare, just call Apple support directly..bear in mind they hold a security deposit and you have 10days to return the faulty phone in the prepaid shipping box

I bought my phone 2 months ago, I’m on my 2nd replacement and receiving a 3rd one this coming week.

It’s not very productive to commiserate here rather than try diagnose the issue.

If you care to, many of us would help; making sure your WiFi access point’s firmware is up to date or trying a different one is a great first step.

I "forget network" or disconnect networks I'm not my thoughts are so the wifi isn't toggling back and forth through networks slowing it down.

Honestly, I don’t think they have a solution beyond “replace the device under warranty”.

[Edited by Moderator]

I can confirm that with me it appears to be an ios issue. My kids have an iphone xs and 8. The xs is on the same new ios version as my 12 pro and fetting the same result. The 8 with ios 13 is getting 85% better wifi speed than the xs and 12 pro.

Now that I tested it on a multiple iOS devises, three iPhone 12 Pro Max and 2020 iPad pro have the same issue, during the test, speed goes up and then rapidly drops to almost half of the maximum speed of my wifi. On the other hand, my three Mac Book Pros continues to have persistent high speed. All this testing is performed right next to WiFi router.

For now I have Google Mesh network(six google wifi routers) and most of them connected to internet with wire.

I strongly believe that this is the iOS and iPad OS issue with mesh networks. I do not think this is hardware issue but the same time we can not strongly deny it until its proven otherwise. So APPLE, please look into this and try to fix the issue!

I was having major connectivity issues with my iPhone 12 Pro Max. That situation has improved after I contacted my ISP (Xfinity/Comcast) and they sent me another router. Now I am able to connect consistently, but the download speeds I am getting generally seem slower than what I get on my MacBook Pro, unless I get fairly close to the router, where all devices get around the advertised speed (~200Mbps).