Morac

Q: iphone connecting to public wifi instead of home wifi

I have Xfinity so I set up my iPhone and iPad to connect to Xfinity (Comcast) public hotspots.  Comcast sets up their provided home routers to be public Xfinity hotspots.  My neighbor has one of these and I'm finding that frequently my iPhone 5S running iOS 8.4.1 will connect to the Xfinity public WiFi hotspot instead of my home WPA2 encrypted networks (of which I have 2).  I even saw this problem at my office where instead of connecting to my work place's EAP encrypted network, it connected to the Xfinitiy public hotspot.

 

This goes counter to what Apple's support article on this states.  How iOS decides which wireless network to auto-join - Apple Support

 

According to that:

 

When iOS evaluates SSIDs to auto-join, it prefers known networks, higher levels of security, and stronger relative signal strength (RSSI).

iOS will try to connect to networks in this order:

  1. The private network it most recently joined
  2. A private network
  3. A hotspot network

If iOS finds more than one network, it evaluates SSIDs by security level and chooses one based on the following order:

  1. Private network: EAP
  2. Private network: WPA
  3. Private network: WEP
  4. Private network: Unsecure/open
  5. Hotspot network: HS2.0/Passpoint
  6. Hotspot network: EAP
  7. Hotspot network: WPA
  8. Hotspot network: WEP
  9. Hotspot network: Unsecure/open

If iOS finds multiple networks of identical type and security level, it chooses the SSID with the strongest RSSI.

 

 

Based on that article, my home network (2,2) should be prioritized over a public unsecure hotspot (3,9) yet it isn't.

Does anyone know how to fix this other than forgetting the Xfinity hotspot?

iPhone 5s, iOS 8.4.1, AT&T 32 GB

Posted on Sep 8, 2015 10:22 AM

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Q: iphone connecting to public wifi instead of home wifi

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  • by Lawrence Finch,

    Lawrence Finch Lawrence Finch Sep 8, 2015 10:28 AM in response to Morac
    Level 8 (37,947 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 8, 2015 10:28 AM in response to Morac

    What that list leaves out is it will stay connected to the network it was most recently connected to. So if you were out and about and it connected to an xfinity hotspot it will remain connected to that until you manually switch it, or turn off WiFi for a few seconds. Unfortunately, there is no workaround other than forgetting the xfinity network, then reconnecting when you need it.

  • by sanmarzano,

    sanmarzano sanmarzano May 25, 2016 6:59 AM in response to Lawrence Finch
    Level 1 (4 points)
    May 25, 2016 6:59 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

    Not the answer I was hoping for but  really good to know - scary how much surfing I've been doing at home thinkiing I'm on a secure network - xfinity is forgotten unless desperate - I suppose comcast is having a good time spying on its customers