I'm inclined to believe it's a Lion OS issue, because I see all kinds of different routers being used in all sorts of network arrangements. If it were one of those other areas, then a pattern would emerge, or it would zero in a particular router or network setup.
I have an Airport Extreme and was told when I bought this Mac a couple years ago that it would work just fine because the basic technology hasn't changed even if the model shape has (although I like this model shape and would hate to lose it for one of round-boxy models). My network connections have been golden since the upgrade to Leopard. As soon as I installed Lion, it went batty, and has remained so.
It shows up whenever I'm NOT using the internet. One indication I've learned to check is the presence or absence of the green circle on my DropBox icon in the menu bar. The Aiport icon will look like I'm connected but I'm not, but when the green circle is gone, so is my internet connection.
That's what's so aggravating. Everything looks like you're connected until your mail program starts to warn it can't send or receive or your browser finally shows it's not connected to the internet, which doesn't always happen. I'll just get the frozen progress bar more likely.
The question is going to be when is Apple going to fix this, or if it will fix this. I can get by simply shutting the wifi off and on through the Menu bar icon. It's not particularly time-consuming, but if this is the indication of Apple without Steve Jobs then I guess that's GTK.
I'm not computer literate, so all these instructions about tossing out plists or resetting IPs or going into the SysConfig areas is like being instructed on how to remove a tumor in someone's brain if you're just a laymen and you've never had any medical training. Don't think I want to try because I really don't know what I'm doing there, and everyone uses a different word to describe a certain file or folder or area of the computer.
