Q: New Macbook Air - wifi connectivity problems

It most likely has to do with outdated routers and/or their drivers.

At my gf's place, she has a Linksys WRT54GS with firmware dating back to Oct 2009, which caused most of the drops I've noticed. 

I just broken down and bought myself the new Time Capsule, and will give her my Airport Express.  Was planning on getting one in the future but figured what the heck.

Good job, Apple.  You've successfully made me give you more of my money.

The problem is that you can't control most wifi networks.  Sure, you can control yours and your girlfriends, but you can't control Marriotts and Hiltons.

To be clear, the problem isn't old routers and old firmware on those old routers.  The problem is the Mac Book Air's inability to work well with older routers and old firmware, etc...  Every other device, we all have, seems to work fine. 

I have the same issues with Wifi.  My problem only exists at work when using the company wide router using WPA Enterprise security.  It won't even connect.  If I switch to WEP Enterprise it connects but not for long.  When at home on my older Time Capsule I have no issues.  I brought a Cisco router into work and plugged it into my ethernet port and set up regular old WEP and my Air never drops.

Better do not expect this to be the ultimate solution. I am having WiFi problems with my 2012 MBA for more than half a year now. I switched my internet provider to solve it, I reinstalled the software several times, I went to support centers, and got a lot of professional and non-professional online support. No solution. Tha I bought an Airport Express. And while the connection to the AE seems to be perfect the MBA now looses internet access twice a minute - and it can last up to several minutes until the internet comes back.

Come on, Apple - your whole product philosophy is built around wireless. This simply can't be!

I tried this solution, but didn't work to correct issue.  Thank you for the solution.

As a CCNP Wireless engineer, I'd like to add my name to the list of those affected and give my thoughts as to what the problem is.

I have several SSIDs running at home, two G networks, one N network, and a new AC network. I have run into this issue connecting to all of my SSIDs, as well as a tethered connection to my Android. I can ping my wireless adapter's IP address, I show up in the DCHP server's pool, I even show up in my router's ARP table. But my laptop cannot ping it's default gateway, nor any other device on my subnet; the opposite is true.

I am also having this issue at work, and at the local coffee house. To those fellow geeks affected, you're not crazy and your wireless network is not the issue.

This problem is two-fold, or so i believe. First off, this is a brand new processor (Haswell) and it's compatibility testing with wirless chips is limited at best. Speaking of wireless chips, Wireless AC is also a brand new field for hardware manufacturers. There will be problems, as we are finding out right now. Is this fixable via firmware patch? absolutley. the question remains, how will we download it?

Hope this info helps.

I am just adding my expereince here too. I have a brand new Macbook Air that I bought last week. Wifi works fine with my Macbook Pro, iPad, and IPhone but my new MBA drops wifi all the time but still shows full bars. I diable/enable the wifi and it comes back. I thought it was my router at first also because it is a 2009 Netgear so I reinstalled the firmware on that and it does it. After reading everyones posts it seems like I am not crazy. Am still waiting on what to do.

It is super annoying because I was doing a goto meeting conference with it and I kept getting dropped out of the meeting. Not cool at all. I am anxious to find a fix.

I've checked that the issue you describe affects my new Macbook Air when my old router is using WPA (TKIP) but it stops immediately when I use WPA (AES) instead. Have you tried that?

edit

This problem is actually not new. I have *exactly* the same issue with my iPhone 5, both at work and at home, while multiple other iDevices can use those same networks just fine. The only solution is to reboot the phone, nothing else does the trick. This occurs at random times. For instance, it may work well for a month and then fail every day for week when I get home from work... but believe it or not I've been living with it so far. I've thought sometimes of taking it to the Genious Bar to get it replaced but I'm not sure I can prove the issue since most likely the WiFi will work fine on the Apple Store.

Apple no longer equals to quality hardware, quite the contraty in fact.

Reading this thread reminds me of my wifi issues with my iPad 2. There was (and certainly still is) a thread that went on for 1 year and was 100's of pages long. Everyone was suggesting fixes and none proved to fully solve the issue. All these reformat, changing channels, etc are just short term solutions. I suggest that if you have a problem with your new MBA, don't wait and exchange or return it while you can. Apple software updates never fixed my iPad2 and the solution was to sell it and get an iPad3. It has never dropped a connection.

Edit: Found the iPAD2 thread https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2780293?start=0&tstart=0

Hah, so true indeed. I got one of those iPad 2 at work (as test device) and it's a pain in the *** to use as it's plagued with WiFi issues. The connectivity just comes and goes when it wants. Most likely a hardware issue, since OS updates didn't fix it, indeed, but Apple has never even acknowledged the problem as far as I know.

did they give you any useful information?

Here's my question: I've got a Genius bar appt tomorrow. Should I return it or exchange it? I'm leaning towards return...what are you going to do?

Hey guys, i just was able to stream radio through itunes for ages, even when safari said my internet didn't want to work...
Can others try this too?

let me know the result..