Q: iPhone 5 wifi issues

I bought my iPhone 3 days ago and from the get go i had wifi issue, it being very slow and taking minutes to download only a few megabytes. I took my iPhone to the genius bar and they had a look at it and said the hardware is perfectly fine and its just a firmware issue. So they asked me some questions and clean restored my phone to the latest firmware. This fixed the slow downloading issue, but still another issue remains...

Whenever i play a video on safari i would be lucky if it were to get past 5 seconds before buffering. I have a 20Mbit connection down and all devices including my old iPhones and my dads have no issue. Come on apple what the heck are you doing. Im resorting to using my iPod Touch to watch videos because they actually work...

This is ridiculous ... this post has over 800,000 views and over 4,000 posts, yet Apple has yet to acknowledge this issue. My GF and I both have an iPhone 5 and we use the newest Airport Extreme. Everything has the newest firmware on it. Yet both our phones have this issue. We bought Apple products because unlike Windows, Google, etc where you have different hardware from different companies working with each other, Apple products are supposed to simply work, without any hassle. Considering this is the reason we own their phones, computers, routers, etc, it's pretty frustrating when my iPhone works with the router at my work, which is not made by Apple, but it won't work with the newest Airport Extreme. As another commenter on this discussion said, those Samsung products are looking real good right now. I hope you're listening to this conversation Apple .. when you fail at providing one of the main attractions to owning your products, (everything simply working together with no hassle, bc it's all made by the same company) it doesn't bode well for customer satisfaction, or, more importantly, for the future of your company. I know nobody wants to hear my rants, but what the h**l Apple, get your s**t together.

I am on my 4th iPhone 5 and they have all had the same problem. I can connect to most wi-fi hotspots but when I run in to a WPA2 with AES encryption I get the "unable to join the network" error. Since this error happens at work on a network I run I decided to dig in to the problem a little deeper. We have around 100 Cisco access points with a Cisco controller and Cisco management software (WLC 4404 and WCS). Looking at the logs in detail it appears there is an issue getting an IP address to the phone. Cisco is complaining that the phone is trying to use an address already in use. On a whim I set the phone up with static IP, ROUTER and DNS server entries. The phone connected!!!

This only solves the problem for those of you with the same issue as mine, those getting the "Unable to join the network" error on WPA2 AES encrypted systems.

For some reason others on our network with the same phone as mine have no trouble. I have no explanation for that. Also my new phone worked out of the box but as soon as I synced it with iTunes and restrerd from backup the problem was there.

Using static IP settings on the iPhone fixed my problem for now but that is hardly a solution for the masses.

Guys,

I had a chance to meet my friend with same iPhone 5 with a very similar wifi problem..

He decided to take it further step ahead and replace the wifi antenna flex cable inside the iPhone 5.

We can confirm that the replacement of the wifi flex cable WILL NOT Solve the wifi problem!!!!!

Apparently it seems like a problem of a certain batch of iPhone 5 with a specific batch of apple wifi chips..

As all the others with intel wifi chips are working ok

TJ888,

You have the same slow WiFi issue as me. See my post in this thread about "simultaneous downloads" (https://discussions.apple.com/message/21477054) for a workaround.

So you are saying if I go on my computer and download a large file through Dropbox, my iPhone 5's video streaming will work?

If so I don't know any large dropbox files to download. (I can't upload any of my own as Australian upload speed is only 100KBps, but Downloads are like 20MBps.)

Guys,

After Further investigation..... and the replacement of Iphone 5 Wifi Antenna Flex Cable which i've seen my friend has done....

it is clearly not a WIFI Antenna problem.

it seems more WIFI Chip Problem (HW) - and after reading here it seems that it is a certain iphone 5 batch with a cerain batch of Apple's WIFI Chips.. ( Iphone 5 with Intel WIFI Chips are working perfectly).

anyone can support this info?

Thanks.

TJ888,

For the iPhone 5 slow WiFi workaround to work you have to use the Dropbox app on the iPhone and download a large file simultaneously in the background while doing what you need in the foreground. You can upload a large enough file for testing at 100Kbps, it will just take a few minutes to upload.

In a few minutes 100KBps will only upload around 30MB and downloading 30MB in the background will take me like 15-20 seconds, and my videos go for 20+ minutes... This will not work for me. 

Hi, i've just checked my iphone 5 wifi mac at http://www.macvendorlookup.com/ and shows there's NO VENDOR NAME FOR THAT MAC ADDRESS. My iPad 2 works fine and shows APPLE VENDOR. What the **** does it means?

TJ888,

That is okay, the video buffer should fill in time.

Shame on Apple that we need to deal with this Iphone 5 Wifi Problem in this way....

after further investigation -

it seems like the major change between almost identical Iphone 5's is the Factory (and probably the Wifi Chip Vendor)

THIS IPHONE 5 WIFI isnt Working properly

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Machine Model: iPhone5,1

Name: iPhone 5

ModelCode: iphone_5

Family name: A1429

Model Number: MD297

Group1: iPhone

Group2:

Generation: 7

CPU speed: 1.3GHz

Screen size: 4 inch

Screen resolution: 1136x640 pixels

Colour: Black

Production year: 2012

Production week: 47 (November)

Model introduced: 2012 

Capacity: 16GB

Factory: F2 (China, Zhengzhou - Foxconn)

This Iphone 5 WIFI is working properly!!!

----------------------------------------------------------------

Machine Model: iPhone5,1

Name: iPhone 5

ModelCode: iphone_5

Family name: A1429

Model Number: MD297

Group1: iPhone

Group2:

Generation: 7

CPU speed: 1.3GHz

Screen size: 4 inch

Screen resolution: 1136x640 pixels

Colour: Black

Production year: 2012

Production week: 48 (December)

Model introduced: 2012 

Capacity: 16GB

Factory: DN (China, Chengdu - Foxconn)

What more annoys me is the compelet Silence from Apple's side.... this should hit now the news , facebook , Twitter . Reddit.... etc..

Hi everybody,

My wife has been lately complaining about the terrible internet connection or more exactly NO internet connection on her Iphone 5.

We bought the gadget in October 2012 in Belgium. There were some signs of this problem back then but never thought it can be a fault. The problem has really worsened in the meantime.

We paid almost 700 EUR here in belgium for this bloody phone. I want my money back.!!

Vadim

I've been in contact with a senior advisor who is talking with the engineering dept.  It sounds like Apple isn't going to do anything.  We are going to need cold, hard proof that it is a hardware or software problem and bring it to Apple's attention.  Until then, they are going to think we are just a bunch of liars trying to get free iPhone replacements.

The serial number of the new iPhone doesn't match the serial of the box, bring down the value, but I really don't care.

I

JUST

WANT

MY

$750

IPHONE

WORKING

PROPERLY!!!

Hi,

yesterday I've changed for new iphone and now I don't have problems with wifi. I thought it was software problem but now i think its hardware problem. If it would be software problem why it would only be on some, not all iphones.