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Is My iPhone's Wi-Fi Dead?


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Is My iPhone's Wi-Fi Dead?
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drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2021-02-01, 10:32

I find that I must often turn off WiFi in order to stream video on my iPhone 7 Plus. It has happened so often that I do it without a thought now.

What up with that?


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Steve Jobs ate my cat's watermelon.
Captain Drew on Twitter
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turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2021-02-01, 10:59

Have you gone somewhere with known good speeds?

So if you're at home it could be many things effecting your WiFi speeds. Your ISP provided service. The Access Point you connect through could be crappy. It could be something with the iPhone, though not likely.

Run a Speedtest from a computer on the network and see what kind of speeds you're getting. Then run one from the phone and compare.

Next time you're out hit a few hotspots and see what kind of speeds you're getting there. Just go wardriving and get an idea of what your phone can actually do off of your network. This will help isolate where the issue is. Is it your phone or your network?

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it.
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drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2021-02-01, 14:31

Yes, I have been elsewhere with good speeds.

Testing with WiFi ON and cellular OFF (and vice versa) I get between 5.92 and 7.5 Mbps download. So not much difference.

It's just wild that it will sit and spin while I'm on WiFi and the moment I switch WiFi off the data loads.

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turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2021-02-01, 15:06

I would look at replacing your router/access point then. I assume you have decent speeds with a wired computer to the internet in your home? Not knowing how good or bad your ISP and service is I'm assuming it is the router/AP. In reality, you could just have really crappy service.

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it.
  quote
psmith2.0
Mr. Vieira
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
 
2021-02-01, 15:23

I know this is obvious/dumb, but I assume you’ve rebooted your WiFi router and related gear already? On 1-2 occasions over the years I’ve had inexplicably spotty service or speed (stuff not loading as quickly as I know it should, and have experienced before), and I unplug everything for 10-20 seconds and let it all restart and things were good. It’s been a very long time since I’ve had to do that, but it has worked.

But you’re no newbie, so I’m sure you’re past that fix.
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drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2021-02-01, 15:34

This gear is part of ATT's Uverse system. It's antiquated, but the TV portion works for mom. We haven't gotten fiber in our area yet, so we're stuck at these speeds. I am supposing the house is littered with dead spots, but I don't know how to add additional wifi points to this system.


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turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2021-02-01, 17:50

You can add a router to the existing setup or access points. I know you aren't the most technically inclined, but it would be a huge improvement for your coverage and local network speeds.

Don't worry, I'm right there with you and AT&Ts forgotten world. When I moved from Va Beach and FiOS I took a massive hit with the ISP. No choice though. AT&T is the only one who covers my house. Maybe Starlink one day.

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it.
  quote
drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2021-02-01, 18:02

This appears to be the correct article?

https://forums.att.com/conversations...d5f2f6067d0d33

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turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2021-02-01, 18:18

Yes. Do you do any port forwarding or anything custom like that? If so then there are steps to do for that. I can help with those too if needed.

Depending on the size of your house and construction would really be a factor in what router/APs you get. Given my disgust with Amazon and privacy means I would stay away from their routers (eero). TP-Link generally has good reviews, but your budget for hardware is going to be the biggest limiting factor. I mean, there are "gamer" mesh wifi configurations that are way too much.

Of course, this would just fix the internal network side of things. It won't do anything for what AT&T is actually providing. You also can't get rid of their router because it is required to translate the DSL signal for you.

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it.
  quote
drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2021-02-01, 18:30

I think D-Link was the last brand I used but am open to anything. Mesh always sounded fancy!!


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turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2021-02-01, 18:45

The absolute best option is not mesh. It is running wires to each access point so you have wired networking to handle the backhaul. Given you don't have great speeds with DSL then unless you handle tons of data internally that just isn't worth it for you. If you can wire, you should though.

I run multiple APs in my house, but I wire them.

D-Link isn't bad... but I haven't used anything but Unifi for a long time now.

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it.
  quote
psmith2.0
Mr. Vieira
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
 
2021-02-01, 18:49

My Mom is also on AT&T Uverse. It's always being weird. Her Internet seems quite pokey for DSL and her TV reception seems affected by pretty much everything under the sun. But she despises Comcast/Xfinity with the heat of 3,000 suns, so that's not an option. She was with them years ago, and it was a horror show (and the only time I've ever heard my mom say the f-word).

She's just across the Georgia line so she can't get the Chattanooga EPB fiber stuff like I have (and am completely spoiled by).
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drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2021-02-01, 23:46

Every 'slave' U-verse unit in the house is wired back to the gateway.

I have switches on either end of the house, for direct ethernet connections for the computers, although I only run the laptop wired when I'm doing Zoom calls (because I'm lazy).

So it's really just the phone that experiences that weird inability to connect via wi-fi.

Edit: that's awful she can't get the fiber – it's awful that I can't get the fiber!!

...

Steve Jobs ate my cat's watermelon.
Captain Drew on Twitter
  quote
turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2021-02-01, 23:51

Cool, so with something like the TP-Link I linked to you would be able to wire each AP to the network. This would greatly improve your coverage and WiFi speeds. You wouldn't have the backhaul to be concerned with.

I don't know the specific configuration options for the one I linked to, but most allow you to put them into "AP Only" mode meaning your current gateway does the network management but the new APs handle the WiFi.

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it.
  quote
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