iPhone 5 wifi issues

I seem to be having a slightly different problem than everyone else

1. My wifi was working perfectly until about 3 weeks ago. It just stopped working well. In what sense?...
2. I have lost extended range on my wifi signal at home. My 3GS (6.0.1) and Macbook Pro are working as normal, but the iPhone 5 (6.0.2, but 6.0.1 at the time of the issue) can no longer be at the same distance from the router (Airport Extreme, fully updated). It can't pick up the signal (Cannot connect to wifi network) unless I get closer. If I get closer (within 2 wifi bars) it connects just fine and the speeds are perfect.
3. Outside my home is a different story. I can no longer connect to any wifi hotspot (e.g. McDonalds, Tullys, Starbucks, free mall wifi, etc). It just can't connect to any of them at all. NOTE: I haven't tried connecting to hotspots after 6.0.2, but at least my home situation is not fixed by the update.

My speeds have never been affected, just my connectability and range.

We have a data cap, so this bug is really killing us right now. We need a good fix for this, please.

Bigabiga,

Dont let go, for Christ sake. You take some android and your iphone5. Put them together and connect on wifi with your android. Then with camera take a pic of both phones where you prove that android can connect but iphone cant

I have made several images:

1. One in cafe where iphone4 could connect but my iphone5 could not
2. One at parents home where iphone 4, motorola fire XT and galaxy advance could connect but iphone 5 could not
3. One restourant where iphone4 could connect but iphone5 could not

And with those "evidence" go to apple store and ask for replacement. They have to replace it.

Sverzijl,

I've had three replacements with no slow WiFi fix yet. Here are the production dates:

1. 2012 week 38 (original on 10/1/2012)
2. 2012 week 48 (replacement on 1/29/2013)
3. 2012 week 50 (replacement on 2/6/2013)
4. 2012 week 49 (replacement on 3/11/2013) <-- Apple Genius said they just got this one in "new"

The NEXT time I go in I'll be using that website to reference the production date.

First, let me say this is my first post, however, I've trolled this site for years, finding it to be a huge source of support. With that said, I recently spent 8 hours bouncing between Apple-AT&T-Apple-AT&T only to discover something interesting.

Here is my configuration:

• Internet Provider: AT&T Uverse 18MB speed
• AT&T Router: 2Wire. Setup to disable wireless router.
• Time Capsule: Acting a WiFi router behind AT&T router.
• 1 iMac, 1 Macbook Pro, 1 Macbook Air, 2 iPhone 5s, 1 iPhone 5 and 1 iPad mini

Situation

• iMac, MBP and MBA all produced download speeds of 17 mb
• iPhones and iPad all produced .8 - 2.0 mb download speeds

  Same download speeds when connected via WiFi to Time Capsule (down stream of AT&T 2Wire Router) and when connected to AT&T 2 Wire Router with Time Capsule eliminated.

• All test performed using speedtest.net
• All test were conducted with devises within a 5' radius of Time Capsule, performed sequentially not simultaneously.
• Similar to others on this board, after hard reset, I do achieve fast speed for a short period only to return to slower speed after a few hours.

Actions taken during attempted resolution.

• Apple suggested Time Capsule settings under wireless, wireless options.....Changed 2.4GHz to Channel 3 and 5GHz to 44. Note I am not using 5GHz but they still recommended the change.
  • Radio Mode is 802.11a/n-802.11b/g/n (Automatic)
  • Security is WPA2 Personal
  • I am using a Guest Network with no security

    Note, I'm not sure this had any impact but it was part of my resolution.

• AT&T adjusted setting on my 2Wire router.
  • Changed wireless channel to 9 (2452 MHz)
  • Changed Security Authentication to WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK

    This now matches what is on Time Capsule

Status

• Changes made minimal improvements and AT&T is scheduled to make a site visit to determine if line speed is the issue. This service call will be performed in two days.
• Frustrated, I thought I would think of what other things could be impacting this performance. Keep in mind, it seems strange only IOS devises work poorly and how could 4 of them (1 being two days old) all be doing the same thing while computers were fine.

Theory:

After performing multiple speedtest functions, I noticed when I select different locations on speedtest, my speed dramatically improved.

• Location is automatically selected on IOS devises. Location chosen was AT&T's major competitor Charter Communication. When using Charter as the server, I experience low speeds. If I change server in the speedtest settings to a neutral server, my speeds return to 16-18 mbps.
• To confirm my theory, I forced my MBA to use Charter's server on a Speedtest which produced a slow 1.5 mbps. Previously it was much higher as MBA was using neutral server in all of my previous speedtest.
• My plan is to ask AT&T if they can block Charter's server or force communication to a neutral server.

Dear dutchmafia,

I feel total empathy, admiration and respect for your troubleshooting steps up to now, however, let's face the facts, 2Wire is a DSL modem/router hence it is slower by default. Now, let's give it our best shot. 2Wire used to be owned by Gateway, now it is owned by Pace. They suggest using a Residential Gateway in order to improve connectivity speeds to a faster rate. Allow me to attach their comments and their URL

http://support.2wire.com/index.php?page=view&article=95&text=how%20to%20tweak%20 2wire%20dsl%20modem%20router%20to%20achieve%20fastest%20speed&cat=1&sort=

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intuitionist

I changed my wireless router from "MIXED" to "G-ONLY" here at work as well as changing my channel to "5". Everything else stays the same (WEP, default settings).

I ran a speedtest (5, to be exact) on "G-ONLY". Then I tried to run a speedtest back on "B-ONLY" (the only two 802.1 antennas my router offers, I don't have "N"); here you can see the results:

So 10:56- 10:55 AM: G-ONLY 5 tests (but look at the glaring .04 mbps download speed-run) 😕

So 10:58- 10:59 AM: B-ONLY (glaring 17.22 mbps upload?) 😕

& 11 AM: BACK TO G-ONLY 🙂

CONCLUSION (in my view):

having the wireless router's antenna set to "MIXED" was giving me MIXED speeds, fast one second, slow the next. Apple's ios6 seems to be getting confused in not selecting the optimal wlan signal. It seems to hang onto "B" when "G" would be a better signal, and flip-flop back-and-forth etc.. Selecting only "G" will guarantee that you run much faster, more consistently (but is still not perfect, look at the .04 download speed on "G-ONLY"). THIS STILL does not let apple off the hook for what can only be a poorly executed ios upgrade. We should not have to manually select single wlan broadcast on our routers to get the best of what cupertino has to offer when their ios should have the intelligence to do so on its' own.

specs:

IOS 6

IPHONE 5

AT&T

32 GB/WHITE

LINKSYS B/G 2.4GHZ WIRELESS ROUTER

Nothing to add, but I am having the same issue. Called Apple support, and the guy said it was the first he heard about it. Wifi works for like 30 seconds but then all data stops (though it stays connected to the network). I have reset and restored and restarted everything to no avail.

I got it resolved.

I contacted a Apple iOS Senior Rep and basically I had to restore my phone as a new phone and start over. They said that problably there was a software issues when restoring the backup from the old phone that caused the issues with Wifi.

As of the writing of the email, no issues at all with Wifi

Same issue here. I went back the Apple Store with the issue. Of course it was working fine with the Apple Store's wi-fi. They performed a restore and reloaded iOS 6 on it. It was working fine there with their wi-fi, but as soon as I got home and connected to my network, I was having the same issues again. It would connect, but it was slow, choppy, and sporadic or fail altogether.

My old iPhone 4 (and 3GS) connects to it without any issues.

I have a first generation Apple Airport Extreme N wireless router. I had already tried resetting it without resolving the problem, but I decided to change the security from "WPA/WPA 2 Personal" to "WPA 2 Personal" and it seems to have made an improvement.

It may be too early to say it is resolved for me, I will see how it goes. --- Well, playing with it for a bit while typing this message, it still seems a little choppy, though better than before.

Now the Apple Store wi-fi was open... no security. I will try turning off security and see if that resolves the issue on the iPhone 5, but no security cannot be the answer.

I'm getting the same issue. It's very frustrating. I've restored the phone several times and it still doesn't make a difference. I'm using a BT router but my iPad and iPhone 4 have no problem connecting for sustained lengths of time.

This is a very serious issue considering the amount of money that has been spent on the phones. It would be nice if apple recognised there was an issue and at least said they were looking into it.

I can confirm that withouth doing anything on my iPhone5, I deactivate on my router the WPA2 Personal Wifi Security and the iphone started to browse the web normally. Hopefully this is a software issue that can be resolved with an iOS6 update.

Anyone else can confirm this?

BTW, I confirmed the issue on both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands.

Yep. I am having the same problem. When I shut off the wifi, it browses the internet fine on LTE but when I switch back to wifi, it has a problem. It will load one webpage and then it stops receiving data.

Bump this issue up!!

my husband I were running speed tests between his iphone 4 and my 5 we did the LTE (verizon) and mine was insanely faster... after trying wifi 3 different times his speed where ridiculous compared to mine, thats when I knew something was up. Hopefully there is a fix soon!

Same problem here.

Home wifi which uses all Apple base stations doesn't work. It connects, gets an IP via DHCP (usually) but crawls. I have two iPhone 5's, one of which has unlimited data. So on a whim I configured it to be hot spot, and shared it with the second phone. The second phone connected and wifi works just fine. Even did a restore from backup this way (over LTE.) Not sure what this data point tells us/Apple, but whatever the bug is it does not manifest itself this way.

Yeah... If I turn off the security on my wi-fi, the issue goes away.

The thing is, if this is a software issue, shouldn't this problem be more widespread? Apple sold 2 million iPhone 5s in the first 24 hours of pre-orders. Who knows how many were sold today.

The Apple Store re-installed iOS 6 on my iPhone 5, but the problem remains.

If someone resolves this problem by exchanging their iPhone 5, please post it here.