Wifi Country Codes, 12,13

Question

Level 1

76 points

Wifi Country Codes, 12,13

Hi there, let me explain the situation:

Wireless Draytek Router, 2830n, broadcasting country code EU

Macbook Pro, 2 months old

I live in Gibraltar, Europe. When I try to change the channel of my Wireless Router to 12 or 13 (accepted channels in Europe, not America) my MacBook fails to connect.

All other devices, iPhones, iPads, Samsung, Acer, HP,Dell,Kindle all connect to it with no issues whatsoever.

In System Profiler, my country code on interface en1 (Wifi) is showing up as US.

I managed to get it to connect once, briefly, but then it dropped.

Why do Apple make things so complicated by trying to guess, by using the Wireless Broadcast Mechanism of any routers that may be around, what region I am in?

Surely that is what location services are for?

My Clock automatically picks up Gibraltar, my maps pick up Gibraltar but my Wireless Interface thinks it is in America with 13 Trillion Dollars debt....

Any help would be appreciated.

Adrian.

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Jun 20, 2013 12:35 PM

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Answer 1

LowLuster

Level 6

12,105 points

Jun 20, 2013 12:45 PM in response to losdelrock

Try creating a new Location. It is set to automatic now. In that you might be able to select a country code, not sure as I have never had to do that but it is worth a shot.

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Answer 2

losdelrock Author

Level 1

76 points

Jun 20, 2013 12:51 PM in response to LowLuster

Hi there, thanks for the quick reply. I set my location manually to Japan/United Kingdom/Denmark and a few others.

No joy, apparently the MacBook seems to pick up a "Country Location" Broadcast from the nearest (or strongest signal) router and uses that as it's region.

http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/9768/change-mac-os-x-wireless-card-coun try-code

Why?

God knows.

Can anyone confirm this ridiculous situation?

Do I have to move to America?

Thanks.

Adrian.

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Answer 3

losdelrock Author

Level 1

76 points

Jun 20, 2013 2:23 PM in response to losdelrock

Thought as much.

The next time my daughter spills a litre of Ribena on my MacBook - I am getting a Samsung 9.

And I am going to learn Chinese.

Thanks for your silence, Apple.

You can keep your 13 Trilion Debt, America.

Many Regards,

Adrian.

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Answer 4

losdelrock Author

Level 1

76 points

Jun 26, 2013 2:07 PM in response to losdelrock

And here is what a Trillion Dollars looks like:

http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html

Wow, how could America get into that state?

I get worried if I owe my mate a tenner.

Still waiting on a repsonse on the Channel 12, 13 thing.

Adrian.

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Answer 5

Jul 16, 2013 5:17 AM in response to losdelrock

Read this: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3656144

Someone must have a router set to US localization near you that is triggering the US setting.

If you set your router to channel 11 and associate did you confirm the country code is showing up as EU for both the interface and the network? Now change the channel to 12 or 13 and it should work until the computer turns off or sleeps.

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Answer 6

losdelrock Author

Level 1

76 points

Jul 17, 2013 7:39 AM in response to BiomolecularLee

Hi there, thanks for the reply - yes, this is indeed the case. Gibraltar has many suppliers of routers which come from all regions of the World.

I am sure that many other places round the World which have borders with other countries are in exactly the same position.

Especially now with global sales (Amazon etc.) you never know where your device is coming from originally.

And some users are not tehnically savvy enough to change the region on their router, or they set it wrong without realising.

I am questioning Apple's logic in setting the Wifi location on the MacBook's Wifi interface according to an incorrectly set router nearby (which is not even mine) and not from where it actually is physically.

Adrian.

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Answer 7

losdelrock Author

Level 1

76 points

Nov 3, 2014 5:36 PM in response to losdelrock

After many hours of research on the Internet, I sent the following to our Apple re-seller in Gibraltar.

This has fixed the issue for me, no word from Apple as yet, I am not holding my breath.

Thanks to the perl savvy individuals out there on the Internet who changed 2 Apple Macs that thought they were in America to knowing they were in Europe, in particular, British Gibraltar.

OK, have been using the following fix for around 6 months now, for the stupid Macbook Pro picking up the first broadcast it detects and then thinks it is in America, when really it should be China. 🙂

This does not allow the Mac to connect on Wifi Channels 12 and 13 in Europe when really it should.

http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/9768/change-mac-os-x-wireless-card-coun try-code

Anyway, after researching the Internet, the following commands work on my 2012 Macbook Pro and my sons 2014 Macbook Pro, both purchased in Europe, from yourselves:

1)

sudo perl -pi -e ‘s|\x81\x78\x30\x6B\x10\x00\x00\x0F\x85|\x81\x78\x30\x6B\x10\x00\x00\x90\xE9 |’/System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AirPortBrcm433 1.kext/Contents/MacOS/AirPortBrcm4331 && sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions/

2)

sudo perl -pi -e 's|\x81\x78\x30\x6B\x10\x00\x00\x0F\x85|\x81\x78\x30\x6B\x10\x00\x00\x90\xE9|' /System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AirPortBrcm4360. kext/Contents/MacOS/AirPortBrcm4360 && sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions/

This changes the region of the Wifi card permanently to ETSI, the European standard. It works pretty well but after upgrading to Yosemite, I had to run the command again on both machines.

If you are going to carry out this fix, the way to determine which Wifi card the Macbook has is:

sudo kextstat | grep AirPort

Then replace the result for the card, e.g. Brcm4360 in my case, in the above 2 command lines.

I never give up.

Regards,

Adrian.

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