Q: Slow Wifi on iPhone 6 Plus

Hi J -

  I reset all network settings on my iPhone 6 plus twice. I reset all routers and ensured that all firmware was up-to-date (I have the ASUS RT-AC87R). I confirmed that my network speed on my iMac and Macbook pro are both what I would expect, around 60-80 Mbps. I have ensured that I have my WiFi encryption set to WPA2-Personal - AES, and not WEP. I tried going into the system settings of location services and turning off the WiFi search setting. There was no change with it on or off.  Please note that in every instance, I have restarted my iPhone as well, just to be sure I was clearing any caches or perhaps hung services. On LTE, my phone works very quickly and I have no problems. As I noted above, my download speed hovers between 6-7 Mbps and my upload speed is usually around 60 Mbps regardless of what I do. There was one time I did manage to get nearly 70 Mbps up and down, but it lasted for less than five minutes. The proximity to my router doesn't seem to change the speed significantly. I should note that before I upgraded to my 6 plus, my 5s slowed significantly on WiFi after installing iOS8.  If you have any suggestions or advice, I'd greatly appreciate it and thank you for your help!

So ... one thing that I do not see is that you tried turning off airdrop.  This worked for me instantly.  Not positive if it was a combo of that and resetting the network settings on the phone as well since I was trying multiple things.   I tried this after seeing that the issue was discovered by the jail breaking community and it is with AWDL (think  AirDrop, AirPlay).  For me, I turned of AirPlay and the issue went away. There is a more specific fix (not really a fix) for  jail broken devices.  I am hoping that apple will be able to resolve this in the next update.

For reference: https://medium.com/@mariociabarra/wifried-ios-8-wifi-performance-issues-3029a164 ce94

Let us know if that works for you.

J -

  First off, great article, and I really appreciated it (as an engineer, it made a lot of sense to me) After you shut off AirDrop in the control panel flip up menu, did you restart your phone? Is there a way to keep it off? And I cannot figure out how to turn off airplay. Interestingly, I did follow the article to disable that feature on my new MacBook Pro. Another feature I found was causing issues was the one which allows you to run an instance of Safari on one device, and continue the session on another device. I disabled that as well, as it was adding to the insanity. Sadly, even with airdrop shut off in the menu, I'm still getting very slow download but insanely high upload speeds. I suspect my problem hasn't gone away. I am running iOS 8.1.2. Given that my symptoms pretty much exactly match the article, I'm guessing that for some reason, this is still just a software/radio addressing issue. Any further thoughts? My latest round of tests are 7Mbps down and 62 Mbps up.

I did the following:

1) Settings>General>Reset>Reset Network Settings. Power Down phone.

2) Reset phone (Hold Power and Home button)

3) Pull up menu>Airdrop>Off  (Airdrop stays off until you turn it on)

These are not in order as that I can't recall what order I actually did it.  I was also trying different frequencies, so I reset the network settings multiple times  before I found out about AWDL.  I do know that the last thing that I tried was turning Airdrop off and it was clear that the phone was back to full speed.  Have not had an issue since and I know that I only started having the issue when I tried to airdrop a photo.  This did not click until I read that article.  Also, there are no other devices that use airplay on my network at this time.  I am unsure if that matters.  It seems like it would though, if your issue is the same issue.

Another note is that the faster up than down was the exact issue that I was having.  I do hope that helps.

I have seen other threads saying that people have fixed this by changing encryption.  I do not believe that this has anything to do with encryption.  It is easy enough to run in the clear on any router to test.  I am guessing that people are only resetting their network connection and it solves it temporally. 

change your DNS settings

I am having the same issue as you dude. Wifi and LTE are very very slow...but mainly when watching videos. My iPhone 5S would load a video in seconds, no matter how long it was. Unfortunately I traded it in for my 6 so I can't do a speed comparison, but my 5S never had a problem on wifi or LTE. Webpages load somewhat fast on my 6, but still not even close to as fast as my 5S. Videos on my 6 look like they've completely loaded all the way, but instead they stutter, stop to load for what seems like forever every 5 seconds and most of the time the video stops, but the seconds keep ticking or even rewind themselves. Really frustrating as I watch a lot of videos on my phone and use the Internet quite a bit on it. Thinking about going down to the Apole Store and getting it replaced...may even purchase a new router while I'm at the mall. I don't have time to read this entire thread but has anyone found a surefire fix for this?

This might help someone else. I've been having this problem for weeks. Turned off QoS on my router. (Buffalo WZR-1750). Speed went from 1-3 Mbps to 60.

Ive had the same problem as everyone else. I tried everything expect changed the settings on my router but i was already wpa2. I even tried chaging my dsn to 8.8.8.8 and it still didn't resolve the problem. Im tired of this not working. I believe it has something to do with the wifi chip in the phone. I had my iphone 4 for 2 years and it starting getting the same problem with the wifi chip. I dont know what to do anymore.

Same problems here with my iPhone 6 – but now solved!

1. Find out which DNS is best for your Wifi by installing and running namebench (Link: https://code.google.com/p/namebench/)
2. Change your WiFi DNS to that result
3. Last (wait to) install iOS 8.2! I'm using the beta and that fixes the issues.

Was dealing with slow wifi connection on an iPhone 6. Step-dad realized the SIM card was bad on the router. Bought a new one and walah Lightning fast connection aka 16mbps!

i just bought iphone 6 plus and yes i have same issue with wifi. it took 'years' to download apps. how to fix it to make it faster?, i don't know what to do. please help me.

dear apple, i am so angry. can you fix this wifi issue? or can i have my money back?

I'm experiencing the same issue, iPhone 6 16GB has been replaced already because of that. Nevertheless, none of the solution listed worked. It works then it doesn't.

Very easy way to test your WIFI speed is with an app called WIFI SWEETSPOTS.

This app tests the speed of your wifi connection and not your Internet speed, very useful for this problem.

Went to Apple for this problem and they act like idiots because of course they don't know what to respond when you demonstrate the problem in front of them  with the very useful WIFI SweetSpots app.

Apple probably knows about the issue, but as usual they are really good at pretending it dos not exist.

I have tested this problem on many different routers, I own an ASUS RT-AC68U, wifi speed test goes as high as 280 Mbps (more or less) when the iphone 6 is not acting out. And like most of you it would drop down like crazy for no reason. Of course a restart of the phone fixes things but it comes back. I tried different routers, 2.4 Ghz, 5 Ghz, WEP, WPA, WPA2 anything you can thing of as well as resetting the phone as new and other crazy things we are suppose to do to make this $700 phone work properly. NOTHING AS WORKED SO FAR.

Cheers.

Yes, I am also having an intermittent WiFi issue with my iPhone 6 Plus (16GB GSM factory unlocked on T-Mobile) and iOS 8.1.3 (12B466) and WPA2 WiFi security (hidden SSID) which I purchased at Apple Store at Grand Central in NYC on Feb 20, 2015.  It happens once or twice a day and almost every time I charge it overnight, then check it in the morning.  The WiFi signal decreases from full strength to 1 bar.  if I try to click Settings - WiFi (or swipe up and toggle WiFi) the phone freezes.  It won't even let me turn off the phone, so I have to do a hard reset by pressing both buttons until Apple Logo appears.  My WiFi then works properly for a few hours or until the next day.  My GF is using my old iPhone 4S works fast on my WiFi at all times, so it is definitely an issue with iPhone 6 Plus.  NOTE: I am using a WiFi network with hidden SSID in my home, so I had to manually configure it once on phone which has been working for last 3 years on my iPhone 4S.

I just tried a solution I saw posted to reset network settings, but will need to wait to see if it works:  Settings>General>Reset>Network Settings.

I will try the solution below next, but I usually leave my Locations Services disabled and can't see the System Services option in the instructions below unless I enable it, so doubt it will work...

FYI

Many users have reported that they’ve solved their issues by disabling Wi-Fi Networking under Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services. This only relates to your location being used for Wi-Fi Networking, so it doesn’t disable Wi-Fi entirely.

I too have slow wifi at times.  mine was fixed after I set my router channel, it was set to auto I selected channel 9 and now I have no issues.

Fix is to change iPhones internal IP to a higher value in your router ex. 192.168.1.166 and make it Static (not dynamic)