While researching my iPhone 13 pro (iOS 17.2.1) inability to discover the 6 GHz WiFi signal, I found the specs for this phone. It contained the following: 6GHz WIFI with "Wi‑Fi 6 (802.11ax) with 2x2 MIMO."
What does this mean and how do interpret this in terms of adjusting the settings of my router?
Do you know that your router is a 6 Ghz router? Or are you assuming your router is and you can't tell if your phone can see that band? Your iPhone can connect to bands from 6 and down. It doesn't however identify the band it is connecting to. If you have a multi-band router, and you want to specifically connect to the 6 Ghz band, you need to name that band and choose it specifically. Otherwise, your iPhone will simply connect to what it sees and what will provide the best Wifi connection.
Your phone is designed for Wi-Fi to connect to the best combination of signal strength, speed, interference rejection and other things Apple won't tell us about.
Exactly what that "combination" might be is not known, but the phone will always tend to favor signal strength over speed, and faster speeds are quite often weaker signals.
So, for example if the phone sees a stronger signal at 2.4 GHz than 5 GHz or 6 GHz, it will connect to 2.4 GHz.
The only way that I can get my iPhones to reliably connect to 5 GHz (I don't have a 6 GHz router) is assign a different name to the 5 GHz signal and then "aim" the phone at that network name.
Then, the phone connects to 5 GHz consistently, even though the signal at 2.4 GHz might be stronger with lower noise.
Frankly, I have given up trying to find the perfect connection, and have set my router to use the same wireless network name for both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. I don't really care which band is connected as long as the phone provides good performance.
iPhone 13 pro Doesn't Discover 6 Ghz WIFI
