slow wifi on iPhone 5

Settings->General->Cellular->LTE OFF

Thank you, Doktordeathray.

Alas, turning LTE off has no effect. Even tried hiding wireless network and setting to no security (to test the WPA Personal theory) - no change. There seems to be absolutely nothing that works, iPhone 5 wifi is abysmal.

However, I suspect it has something to do with a combination of iPhone 5 (either hardware, software or both) and the specific wireless router. Whether LTE connectivity is involved, I'm not sure (I have LTE connectivity here at work office also).

However, when I'm at home iPhone 5 screams - the only difference is my home router is an Airport Extreme (2010 model) and there is no LTE connectivity there (only AT&T 4G). The Aiport Express at office and Airport Extreme at home have the same settings (except the network name and password, obviously).

When I get home this evening, my wifi speed should go back to normal (unless somethings gone shockingly awry in my iPhone) and I'll update in this thread to confirm. Then, perhaps I can list the specific difference between these two networks and the geniuses here might be able to make some headway, theories-wise, anyway.

-shrug- I don't know. It's frustrating.

*****

Edit to add: my home Airport Extreme is connected directly to my network modem (cable modem), where my office Airport Express is connected to the network in BRIDGE mode, so it's not actually dishing out DHCP addresses and all that stuff. I'll update this thread tonight.

Message was edited by: Pixietale Studios - adding update statement.

i tried the above fix for my iphone 5 white 32 gb on ios6 and i can say that 3/5 speedtests were > 10mpbs where the 2/5 were < 5mpbs.

i typed in "test" in the client id and renewed my lease here at work where i am regularly receiving ~10mpbs download speeds on my galaxy nexus as tested on the speedtest app.

i don't really understand the intermittant wi-fi throughoutput on the iphone5/ios6. i really hope it's not a hardware issue and that apple resolves this quickly through a software update. this is truly unacceptable and might explain why apple is suing the shiet out of everybody in order to grab as much money as they possibly can before an exodus of clientele if they continue these half-asssed product offerings.

I've discovered the problem (at least in my case) and I'm willing to bet it's the source (for those experiencing what I'm experiencing, anyway): the Router is the issue. At least: how the iPhone is communicating with it, I suspect it's something the iPhone doesn't like about how the router is set-up, making the issue to be on the iPhone side of the equation.

RECAP: My iPhone 5 works on practically every wifi network I connect to (home, freebie wifi at Costco, Home Depot, Macy's, et al) but does NOT connect to Internet at my work office, even though my iPad and MacBook and other people's mobile devices work fine.

At my office we use an Airport Express in "Bridge" mode to add wifi to our existing network (this Bridge Mode alone could be the problem, I suppose, but other devices work fine). So I downloaded the Airport utility for iOS and connected to the Airport Express - no problems, EXCEPT it shows the "Internet" is disconnected, but the AE is fine (green light).

Managing the the Airport Express on my desktop - all looks fine. And as stated, all other devices connect wirelessly and get Internet just fine - EXCEPT my iPhone 5. I've tried everything I can think of with rebooting routers and switches and the Airport Express and reconfiguring login methods (WEP, WPA, No Security, etc).

NOTHING is working. So, only my iPhone 5 is not getting the "pass-through" to the Internet. Everything else is.

In another thread, someone mentioned Applecare Support suggested a reset of the iPhone, but don't restore, rather reset it as NEW. Apparently he (the Support Rep) suggested it could be a bug in software or possibly a glitch in the backup file or a glitch in the restoring process. That user says everything seems to be working okay for now since he did that. I will try it tonight when I get home (at Office right now).

Okay, with all this said, are there any Gurus here who can suggest anything I can try regarding my network or Airport Express settings while I'm here at work today?

Otherwise, I will do the full reset of my iPhone 5 (as NEW, not as a restore) tonight and report back tomorrow.

Post Script: in my case, my iPhone 5 has ZERO connectivity to Internet through my network. I understand that others in this thread do have connectivity, but it's like a molasses river and in some cases intermittent. However, based on what I am experiencing and what I know about networking (which is old knowledge and admittedly, not very up-to-date, read: not that great) - it seems the troubles we are experiencing is in how the iPhone 5 is connetincting to, or communicating with some routers or switches or some-such and not a hardware issue, but a software/driver/protocol one.

Thaks to all in this thread - illuminating comments in here.

I think you may be on to a good lead for at least one set of wifi issues with the Iphone 5. I use a 4th Gen Airport Extreme (latest FW) in Bridge mode connected to my UVerse modem. My 4s on iOS5.1.1 gets a solid consistant wifi connection in all parts of the house. My network speed using the Mac is around 17.5Mbps and the 4s consistantly sees 16-16.5Mbps. My iphone 5 (ATT) usually connects OK but the speed is not at all consistant and averages about 30-40% slower than the 4s. The connection works OK for video or data transfers but it is not satisfactory for FaceTime or Airplay (either video or audio) due to occasional dropouts.

After reading your post, I turned on the native wifi G in my UVerse modem to see if it would work better than my bridge mode Airport Extreme running wifi N. Wifi G is not as efficient so I was not surprised to see that speeds on my 4s, while still consistant, were reduced from what it delivered from the Airport. The iphone 5 connects consistantly and delivers 20% faster speed than the 4s (10-13Mbps). It appears to be a solid conection that should work well with FaceTime and Airplay but I have not tested that yet.

Next step for me will be to see if I can reconfigure my network to take the Airport out of Bridge mode. This should not be neccessary and I hope that Apple can fix the bug with a software update, but I'd rather reconfigure my network than go through unneccessary hardware replacement.

"Restoring" iPhone 5. Here's the first mystery: iTunes is "Downloading iPhone Software Update" - a BIG update (10 minutes to download - like I were updating my iPod Touch to iOS 6 kind of download). Why would it do this if iOS 6 is "native" on the iPhone 5? Downloaded, then a full "processing file". "Preparing for restore..."; "Verifying restore with Apple"... iPhone finally starts-up. Then the old "Restoring iPhone software".

Sheesh.

After verifying, iTunes reports "restoring firmware" - this is weird, I've never seen this before (on a new iDevice when there are no announced updates). The iPhone reboots. Perhaps the thing has corruption, causing iTunes to do a full resuscitation?

I'm choosing "Set up as a new iPhone" - I figure iCloud will restore contacts and all that stuff, and just set to auto-sync apps and the rest and just clean-up afterward. Apple Mobile sync asking perssion to my Keychain like 7 times.

I know this post isn't adding anything new to the discussion - the reason I'm posting is because the "download and iupdate" process caught me off-guard. For some reason, my iPhone didn't report to iTunes that it already has the most current version of iOS 6. However, the Summary page still reports iOS 6.0 (no update identifiers). This leads me to believe something was wonky in the iOS data from the factory (I'm just shooting from the hip here).

Since the problem I'm having is at the office, I won't know for sure if this fixes the issue. I'll report (good or bad) tomorrow morning.

Success! Solution!

I have reconfigured my home network to make my AirPort Extreme fourth-generation not be in bridge mode. This has resolved all my Wi-Fi issues with the iPhone 5. My iPhone 5 now delivers better Wi-Fi speed then my iPhone 4S. Using the AirPort Extreme in bridge mode does not appear to impact my iPad or iPhone 4S, but it certainly limits the capability of Wi-Fi in the iPhone 5. I expect there will need to be either a firmware change in the airport or in the iPhone 5 to make the two compatible in bridge mode. I preferred the way my network works now that I've taken it out of bridge mode anyway.

@DaveSwartz: This is good to hear.

I did the iPhone restore (as new iPhone) and reinstalled everything. Brought it into the office - no joy. Turning off Bridge mode on Airport express is my next (and last) attempt LOL. I did bring in my iPod Touch (which is upgraded to iOS 6) - it works great.

What this means is: this is NOT an iOS 6 problem (my specific problem; specifically: able to connect to Airport router, but not to the rest of the network the Airport is connected to). It is apparently something specific to the iPhone 5 Firmware.

I'll report on joy/no joy after switching AE to non-Bridge mode.

Confirmed: turning off Bridge mode on Airport Express when adding woreless to an existing network solves iPhone Internet access.

RECAP: The problem I had was:

Short version: all mobile devices and laptops (even iOS devices upgraded to iOS 6) accessed network and Internet just fine, except iPhone 5.

Longer version: all wireless devices (iOS, Android, OS X, Windows - everything) was connecting wirelessly to my network and Internet via our Airport Express, set to "Bridge" mode (does not create a wireless network, rather - it just created wireless access to an existing network).

However, iPhone 5 was easily able to connect to the Airport Express itself, but NOT to the rest of the network, including the Internet. Resetting the Airport Express, iPhone (restore as new iPhone, et al) and even rebooting all routers and switches did not help.

However: having the Airport Express on a STATIC IP Address and then creating a wireless network (not in "Bridge" mode) solved the problem.

Therefor, if your particular iPhone 5 "network access" difficulty is similar, try setting your router (if it is only one part of your network, such as a wireless access point, etc.) to create a network and not in "Bridge" mode.

Just wanted to add my own findings. Same deal as most of the people in this thread. Wi-Fi was at a crawl installing apps from the App Store.

I have a 2nd generation AirPort Express and switched around the wireless channels on both bands (2.4 and 5.0 GHz). Speeds are back up now.

Still not sure what the culprit is, but it looks more like a software issue than a hardware one.

Software issue most definitely. Turning off LTE and try all of the "fixes" would defeat the purpose of having a great phone. Patience until the next update is perhaps the only solution at this moment.

Turned off LTE and cellular data in Settings->General->Cellular and my wifi speed went from 5Mbps to 12 Mbps.

I hope this helps out some folks. My issue was slow wifi after about 10-15 minutes of turning on the phone (both my WPA2 network and neighbor's WEP). If I turned it off/back on it would get back to normal and perform like my roommates' 4 and 4s. After about 10-15 minutes the phone would become paralyzed with almost no speed in terms of load times. If wifi was turned off LTE would perform flawlessly. I called apple to see what they were hearing, I was seeing too much absurdity on the forums and wanted to go to the source. They gave me the usuals like reset network settings etc. I had already tried all of those. I backed up my phone in itunes and restored it to factory settings and did nothing, no restoring from icloud or anything. Wifi worked great for 30 minutes of testing. I restored my backup from itunes and kept icloud backups off. Wifi has been great for 2 hrs of testing now. I am now turning iCloud backups on again and haven't noticed issues yet. My suggestion (if you only have a speed issue, not signal or dropping wireless) is to do a restore first then toggle iCloud backups on/off to see if that helps. I imagine there is a software issue shipping with some new iPhones.

For some crazy reason by turning private browsing on my wifi speed went through the roof!

Give it a go it worked for me. No idea why though

I am having the same problem. Ever since I got iPhone 5 the Internet went downhill from 10mb to 1mb. Sounds insane but true. I've tried everything, even brought two new routers and its still not working. I can't even watch YouTube or anything on this stupid phone which I paid 650 plus tax on. If apple can't make something that's better. Don't sell it for such a high price and advertise it like its so much better then the old one. iPhone without Steven jobs is no iPhone!