iPhone 5 wifi issues

I too am having problems with wifi connections. Mine seems to be 2 problems or they might be related. I have to be within 15 feet of my router or I lose wifi connection. I also notice that download speed is less than half of what my other iOS devices can do (I have a 4s & new iPad).

I'm not sure what to do. I had preordered it through AT&T. The closest Apple store is an hour & 1/2 away. I guess I will have to make a call to Apple support. I'm sure they'll give me the "we're not aware of any problems" speech. I'm tempted to just return it & stay with my 4s. :(

Whoever in charge of Apple quality control for iphone 5 shall reconsider his career. This is the most anticipated device since first iPhone yet most disappointing on day one. I had not just issue with wifi but also a dodgy lightening cable... So here is my story. Got the iphone yesterday, came back home and plugged in, the phone was neither picked up by itune nor recognised as a storage device, and it wasn't charging. Fine! Repeating another dozen times of plug/unplug finally got it appeared in itune and started charging. Just as I was thinking I might just be unlucky to pick up a unit packed with either a dodgy cable or port, the wifi issue surfaced. The phone could not connect to the WPA2 key authenticated wifi home network or drop out soon it connected while rest of devices working fine. Even dropping the authentication as some of members here suggested only managed to give me a very weak signal and slow up/downstream speed. Next second, I booked an appoinment with local apple store genius bar first thing in the morning.

So paid the visit to genius bar and the guy there was very helpful. He played the device for couple of minutes and confirmed the issues with both wifi and cable and was kindly swapped my very first iphone 5 with a brand new unit. Guess what. Problem solved straight away. The phone now picks up many more networks and has very stable and fast speed once connected.

My gut feeling is this wifi issue has something to do with one batch of bad communication chips as some users also reported a slow 3G connection compared to 4S side by side. Ayw, the new unit works fine so far and I will see how it behaves in another 24 months time:)

I've looked into this situation a while back with my 4s and claims from Ape saying it can run on a "N" network but have never been successful running on my "N" router. I did find a few articles that have seemed to help. Here it goes.

Switch your router to "B/G only," problem solved. I'm using some form of WPA2 for security and I'm getting around 15mbps down and around 10mbps up. Works just fine, but the second I try "N" only or "Mixed" I dip to half a meg down but get like 6-10 Mbps up. Haha, weird stuff. Give it a shot. Worked for me.

richsark wrote:

Some more clues I found fascinating. When the iPhone is waken up. I see it attached on my router under attracted devices. As soon as it goes to lock mode or I lock te phone it drops off the wire. When I press the top or bottom button on the phone ..... I see it on the router .

Almost looks like it does not stay connected to wifi when the phone locks.

Anyone can confrim this issue?

When the phone is put to sleep or goes to sleep, it's supposed to drop off the network unless it's using Wi-Fi to do something else, like backup to iCloud.

I get that same thing. Phone is locked, unlock it and I'm on LTE. Let it sit for a quick sec after "waking it up" it connects. My only concern is if it is actually connected to LTE or WiFi due to me being on a tiered data plan.... Although I'm sure it's not using that much data, if any at all, while locked, but every Mb counts now-a-days.

Staying connected to Apple Push Notification Service via WiFi consumes too much battery, so they fall back to cellular when the device is locked (unless a WiFi session is already open by some app). It is a good decision and has a negligable billing impact, but you may completely eliminate the cost by switching off Cellular Data in Settings (which is not an option for most of the people interested in this thread right now 😉

Millions of users never think to use WiFi with their phone and they don't even have landline phone or home internet. AT&T had to do a big marketing campaign to get people to learn how to use WiFi on their phone back when their network was having (worse) growing pains. Others might use WiFi at work or school, but would simply revert back to LTE assuming the routers are having trouble and won't realize the problem is "on their end" for another few weeks. Bottom line, this could be a really huge problem that goes unnoticed by the majority.

@Shapetable- I agree 100%! I've been saying that for days, we'll see in few weeks or so I guess. But I'd put money that there's A LOT more faulty phones out there, then there is people posting or viewing on this forum.

I'm beginning to grow increasingly frustrated with apples seemingly total ignorance to what is now a 41 page + forum! do they actually read these problem pages, it would be good customer care for them to at least acknowledge this post or a simple message to let us know they are looking in to this!

I agree with numerous previous posts stating that anyone with a wifi issue contact apple immediately! the more complaints they receive, the less ignorant they can pretend to be.

It also begs the question of how big this problem actually is, I wonder how many people who are not as tech savvy as some, wouldn't even realise there connection is as poor as it should be, especially if they are having no issues picking up their routers!

The joys of becoming an isheep 😐

I called Apple 4 times today! Not to troubleshoot, just to talk to different reps, to see if they are aware and doing something. I got mixed results, which is very disappointing. Every single person working for Apple should be aware at this point. PLEASE EVERYONE SHOULD CALL AT LEAST ONCE! Make this into a bigger issue for them.

I wonder if there is any way in which we could trace our phones to a specific production batch someway? It seems like there are faulty phones which people have had exchanged from the Apple store for fully functional ones. It would be interesting to see if this is problem with the hardware is related to a confined number of handsets from a guven batch or is an endemic problem of the phone itself.

When I was adding apps onto my iphone 5 (32Gb) for the first time, it appeared to be VERY slow, some apps taking twice as long to load. But with time the speed has picked up and downloads and upload speeds are at par with my laptop and the old iPhone 4 (I'm holding onto it for now just in case...). I personally haven't had any issues with catcing the WiFi at home and at work (both are secure networks) so I am assuming my handset is not one of the faulty ones.

@ singlemalt

this is possible, it was tested around 24 pages in to this forum using :

http://www.chipmunk.nl/klantenservice/applemodel.html/

but there were various result, although production week 37 / 33 did pop up a lot, however there were people with no issues with the same production week

so still unclear really, just wish apple would at least release some kind of official statement to say they are at least looking at this ! sigh

For all who are having conncectivity issues and slow data speeds....which type of wireless network are you on (g or n)? Also which frequency band are you using (i.e., 2.4 ghz or 5 ghz)? My 64 gb black AT&T iPhone 5 has more problems on my 2.4 ghz network rather than my 5 ghz. I am using WPA/WPA2 Personal security on an Apple Airport Extreme/Time Capsule. I also notice I significant speed bump when I set up a guest network without security (however, I don't know on which frequency the guest network resides). I am also noticing that the speed has beeen picking up over time (and numerous resets, rest network settings, etc.) than where it was over the weekend.

Had wifi issues with holding connection after moving more than 2 to 3 metres away.

Exchanged today and what a difference! I believe it's an issue with a batch but could be hardware or software. The connection is not as strong as mac book air but still as good if not better than iPhone 4. The way it should be.

I got my iPhone 5 on Monday 24th (pre-ordered at lunch at 14th).

I immediately noticed that the WiFi has a weak signal being 1 meter away from the router. I've checked other WiFi networks which I was using with my iPhone 4 and I couldn't even see any of them with iPhone 5.

I used to have full signal strength at the whole flat with iPhone 4 and now with 5 I have to be in the same room withe the router to catch a signal.

I've called apple support, a guy told me to reset network settings - doing that disconnected the call... So I called them again, different guy picked up, I had to tell him about my issue all over again, after asking a bunch of questions he put me on hold - after 40 minutes of listening to the on hold music I had to do something else so I've ended the call.

I called them for the third time, told my story again, the guy told me to change the router settings but that didn't helped at all. I've checked all the encryptions (open, WPA, WPA2, WEP...) with no difference to my wifi issue.

The guy on the phone said that I have to do a restore via iTunes and if that won't help, they will REPAIR my iPhone! I don't want to repair it, it came faulty to me!

So I've driven 40 miles to the Apple store, told all my story once again, just to hear that they cannot do anything because I bought the iPhone online and I have to send it back.

I've already sold my iP 4 so I'm going to stick to this iP5 (faulty one) for a couple of days, return it and buy a new one in the Apple store.

I'm 90% sure it's a hardware issue so even if they release a fix it won't be perfect and will probably cost us a shorter battery life

I'm so disappointed with the apple, I love their products but this is ridiculous. I paid 530£ just to get a broken iPhone which they want to repair as it was my fault.

I wasted over 20£ for calling them, fuel to get to them and what's most important: time.

Very disappointed:(

I'm back again with another comment. Tried some more options today. And found something that works for me and has probably been mentioned in various forms before.

I went into my router settings, took me a while to find this setting in my router(it was well hidden). But I changed from wpa/wpa2 to just wpa.

I was shocked at the speed test results virtually doubled and super quick.