iPhone XS Max Weak 5GHz WIFI Reception

interesting. so i have my genius bar appointment on sunday for my XS max and my wife's XS. do i just return them and go back to our 8pluses, or wait a few days to see if the software comes out and fixes. the 8 pluses needed to be returned by 10/5, so i'm thinking return the new phones and wait to see if a fix does indeed fix and then buy them again in a few months...as someone else suggested!

Thanks rbrylawski. Mine doesn't say if its 2.4 or 5. I go to settings>wifi and it only lists the one I have logged into. I'm just not sure if I have my router configured to 2.4 or 5, or both....

Its a d-link AC5300.

I guess I'll have to go to their website for more insight. Is there a way to tell on my phone what frequency I'm on?

Really, call your Network Provider. They have people who speak English and honestly, they'll be able to guide you on how to determine which is the 2.4ghz and 5ghz networks. The reason I know is I have access to two networks via my provider. Both names for the network are the same, but one actually has 5G at the end and the other one doesn't.

They look like this XYDF3456F7-5G and the other looks like XYDF3456F7 (without 5G at the end).

Most routers have a setting to enable 5GHz. It’s there that you can name it differently from the 2.4. For those that have Apple routers Airport Utility app makes this easy. Once you have set up a separate name, connect to the name you established for the 5. And then tap on the “i“ for your other network and just set it to forget. That way it will always connect to your 5. Your range won’t be as far but your speeds will almost always be considerably faster.

I have been looking at some of the mesh routers and I’ve seen some feedback that you can’t name the 2 bands separately so this may not be possible with them. Apparently they will always connect you to the stronger signal which unfortunately is usually going to be that much slower 2.4. That would pose a problem for me. Hopefully my Apple Time Capsule doesn’t give up the ghost anytime soon.

I read through a number of the replies and have the same issue. The phone has trouble connecting and maintaining connection to the 5ghz WiFi network with 2-3 bars and sometimes does not even see it. The phone then reverts to the 2.4ghz or to LTE. I did not have problems with my previous X or my iPad which is right next to my iPhone.

Yup. Today when I left work my XS max dropped the work guest WiFi as soon as walked out the door while my work 6plus held WiFi for another ten to fifteen feet.

AppleCare called me today and I have a call with them tomorrow to troubleshoot!

So Apple Support reached out to me to work on the issue.

Unfortunately I wasn't near my phone when they rang, and I haven't managed to get hold of the support person as her phone was going straight to VM.

Either way, look forward to providing more logs for their engineering team.

I don't believe this is an iOS12 issue either. I have an iPad running iOS12 which gets better than double the network performance of my XS Max when sitting right next to it on the table. I've confirmed in my Access Point's management interface that the XS will not connect to any 5Ghz bands while the iPad has no problem.

I've got a support ticket open with Apple now, but I am running out of time on my hardware return window.

Hello everyone.

On my end what I am noticing with the XS Max is that when staying in a good signal area the connectivity and speed is acceptable and comparable to my iPhone X. But when moving in the street, many many times the phone takes good one or two minutes to be able to connect to the internet, then usage is normal for a while, if I keep moving this happens again. I am not an expert on how connection works but a wild guess is that when changing serving antennas the phone is not “reconnecting” well to the different serving antennas or something alike. With my iPhone X using the same network provider I don’t have this issue.

As I said, wild guess, by no means I know how this works but it is a guess, just providing my feedback.

Note: this has happened in the UK and in Spain as I have used the phone in both places and with same result.

Did support allude to this being a hardware design issue, or something that might be fixable by an update of some sort?

This is my first IPhone and yea, had a week of people saying they can't understand me because of my signal quality.

My Note 8 has never gave me an issue and I live in a bigger city.

Thanks for the info!

Strangely enough...the call ended with a final reboot and airplane toggle. I just walked around my house and had a normal conversation on the phone with no interruption. Same with outside. They also had me take my SIM card out and put in my iPhone 8plus and then back in the new phone. This was for testing on the new phone and the old phone. Not sure if that helped or if it’s still bad.

I’m giving them until the end of day Tuesday. And then I’m calling the tech back that called me. I’ve got his personal line from the email he sent me about my open case. I understand the backlash here. These phones aren’t cheap! But I also understand software updates, and troubleshooting, having worked in IT for about 15 years. People want a fix ASAP. But sometimes the fix that’s needed just can’t be fixed ASAP.

Same here. Still have my iPhone X not returned yet. It has all 5 bars on the Apple Router in all rooms on all devices (iPad Mini 4), but was I leave the room where the 5Gh router is at my brand new iPhone X’s MAX drastically drops to 1 bar in the doorway -leaving that room. I the attached hallway I then have no internet on the MAX but all other devises (iPad Pro 2, iPhone X, iPad mini 4, iPad Pro 10.5”) maintain 5Ghz all the way to the street and driveway of my house.

What’s going on here??

Please reach out to Apple Support. Twitter or chat via the Apple Support app is the easiest. At least get your device added to the open cases. My Senior Advisor said he hadn't heard of this issue. The more people that open support cases the quicker hopefully they will address this issue. I even tweeted Tim Cook about it this morning, thanking him for the awesome camera on the XS but asking him to get Apple to focus on the WiFi issues some users are seeing.