iPad Air slow WiFi connection

Changing my network to a 5GHz name also fixed my speed issues with my iPad Air and iPhone 5S

I have mine on my 5GHz network. I switched to the 2.4GHz then forgot it and went back to the 5GHz and it worked for a couple of minutes, then stopped again down to almost no streaming speed at all, frozen video. I agree, it is only on the iPad Air. My iPad 3 works fine.

We have experienced slow iPad Airs on our managed HP wireless system; the old iPad 2s worked fine, but the Airs were unusable - although they worked fine on a standalone WAP.

After a lot of tests we concluded it was down to the Airs having MIMO.

The managed WAPs we are using (HP MSM430) have both 2.4 and 5GHZ, but no MIMO support. If the Airs connect to the 5GHz band they don't work, but by forcing them to use the 2.4GHz band they work fine.

We also discovered that the HP MSM460 WAP does support MIMO, and the Airs work fine at 5GHz if connecting to the MSM460 WAP.

Changing Proxy to automatic solved the problem!

Thank you megaprime!

NOT here :-(

Thanks mega prime. Changing from off to auto immediately doubled the download speed on my new iPad Air!

Update. It is hard to tell if this still works. My iPhone 5 seems to test consistently faster on wifi than iPad Air.

I have the same issue that everyone else is describing. I received my iPad Air and immediately realized there were major issues. Incredibly slow to load webpages, VERY slow to download an app (20-30 minutes) if it would download at all. I spent over an hour on the phone with apple support where they had me do a complete reset of the device. When that didn't work I had to send back the iPad air where I was told that they didn't see anything wrong with it. The replacement I received is doing the EXACT same thing, so it obviously has something to do with my router. I have an iPad 2 and 2 iPhone 4's that connect just fine and have no problems.

I have read several people's comments about connecting to a 5GHz band but I'm not sure how to do that in my router's settings. I consider myself pretty tech savvy, but after reading the comments in this thread I don't see how Apple can release a product that requires so much effort just to make it work!

Any help would be much appreciated!

I changed proxy to auto and it uppped the speed a little. I then bought a new NETGEAR R6250 AC1600 dual and gigabit router and the wifi maxed out at the speed provided by Comcast, about 30mbs in my case. I agree it has to do with an issue in the new MIMO technology used by Apple in the air.

I was using a linksys G router

I had same problem. I restored my iPad air and set it up as a new iPad not from my backup. My backup had even original iPad stuff so I was thinking May be that was causing some issues. It solved my problem and I am getting constant speed, even in the basement. Be careful if you decided to restore and set up as a new iPad, make sure to save your pictures and videos etc otherwise you won't be able to retrieve it.

Update - Visited Starbucks today and connected to their AT&T Wifi. It was extremely slow and much slower than my home network using my Airport Extreme. I expected Starbucks to have a robust high speed network but I was wrong. Not many people were in the Starbucks. I attempted to turn Wifi on and off and reconnect but no success. I left Starbucks after realizing that the Wifi was a complete fail. I don't understand how Apple could release this product when it has obvious problems. This should be a recall at a minimum. I don't believe this would happen if Steve Jobs was still running the show.

Dear Apple - I would like to know how to permanently cure this defect, and if a remedy is not available I would like to exchange my IPad Air for an IPad 2. I am not abandoning the IPad product but would like something that consistently works. The IPad Air has been a disappointment from day one. Help.

I just got my new iPad Air to replace my old and trusty 3rd generation iPad (I'm giving it to a good friend). The setup last night from my old iPad backup went flawlessly. However, when I went to Downcast to update my podcasts I couldn't believe the drop in speed! My old iPad did the same downloads in 1/4 of the time of the iPad Air. I have a D-Link DIR-655 router and have no problems with my two iPhone 5's and my AppleTV. Is Apple listening and coming up with a solution to this serious problem? I'm hestiant to give my old iPad away to my friend until this problem is resolved. PLEASE FIX THIS!!!

After updating to iOS 7.1 I had the slow Wifi problem once again. Setting http-proxy to automatic didn't help this time.

I turned airplane mode on, made an reset of my network settings and than turned the airplane mode off. now everything works fine.

Hi there,

I was also experiencing slow wifi-connection problems with my iPad Air. Normally I get between 13mbit and 21mbit but my iPad was the only device on my network getting stuck at just 0.6mbps (*** right?). After a long while I discovered my iPad could'nt handle my router's channel 13 that well. I switched to channel 12 and I immidiately got the same speed as my other devices. Quiet dissapointed in Apple for delivering such an "state-of-the-art" product, provided with all the latest technology for hundreds of euro's and not even connecting properly to a channel 13 wireless network. BTW, I needed to share this with you guys. ****, I even registered an account on this board especially for this.

Cheers.