Painfully slow WiFi on new iPhone 5

I haven't done enough testing to be sure but I think there is definitely something amiss with wifi in the new 5.

I've got 6 iOS devices...

iPhone 5 and 3GS running ios6 and ios5.1
iPad 3 x2 ios6 and iOS 5
iPod touch 1st gen iOS 3.1.3
ATV3 (latest update iOS 5.1 equiv I think)

I use a uPNP media server and plug player and I get major buffering issues with relatively low bitrate audio when plugged into my stereo upstairs... I've used the 3GS, iPod touch and iPad here without stuttering issues. It seems that the 5 is dropping connection or packets causing the stuttering issue. Loading web pages it seems fine but any streaming on wifi is a no go compared to older devices.

I have yet to try out the two iPads next to the 5 at with different iOS versions to compare but from day 1 my wife's iPad, though the exact same iPad 16gb wifi only model, consistently could not get the same range as mine, especially testing out back on our patio. I'd get 2 bars wifi she would get 1 or no connection in the same location. Going to 2.4GHz helped but I found it odd to be such a variance between the same model. However both iPads did not get the same wifi range as my 3GS or old iPod touch...

So far my 5 has great WiFi Connectivity on all WiFi networks I have connected to. I have only been on 6 different networks, but I am getting the same speeds that my 2010 macbook air get, which is a lot faster than my iPhone 4 and just a little less than I get from my my other computers at home.

I have narrowed down my problem to either two things:

on 5ghz setting its absolutely fine but the range is awful and in parts of the house i cant get wifi on my ip5. When i change to 2.4ghz the iph5 is ridiculously slow on the network, streaming from my mac is basically impossible, it loads 3 seconds at a time and is awful.

So i plugged in my old router into the virgin super hub and connected my imac and ip5 to that which is running the 2.4ghz from that router with the broadband pumping through it, NOW it works and streams just fine with no issues.

So the issue is either:

2.4ghz on the virginmedia super hub is crap and thats causing the problem but im tied into virgin and using this equipment i think.

or the phone is faulty but it seems to work with other equipment okay so im sure its the super hub.

Will call Virgin and find out what they can do.... really annoyed.

LTE Seems to be the issue See Video

I have been having super slow Wifi speeds and the phone simply disconnecting from the wifi network while syncing.

When I turn off LTE I get X10 the wifi Speeds. See the Video.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9do5ff12fjg65si/iphone 5 lte issue.mov

I have found this works 9 out of 10 times. Every once and a while I get normal Wifi speeds with LTE on but I think that is just the phone switching over to 3G.


Apple told me to just return the phone at the Apple Store. I hope I don't have to. Such a pain.

My 5 is finding as many APs as my iPad 3 on iOS6. After trying multiple servers on speed test I can get about 12mbps on both the iPad and iPhone. On my desktop I get 33. I have full wifi signal on both. The only thing that bugged me yesterday is I had full wifi connection on my 5 and no data until I rebooted it.

I think this is a software issue so I am going to hold off for about 2 weeks to see what Apple does as the phone is fine other then that. I know some people claim their replacements are faster but maybe it has something to do with getting a new mac address or they did have bad wifi reception. My reception is fine.

my iphone 5 didn't seem to want to go faster then 10Mbps down, so I reset my router and boom, 35Mbps down.

So try unplugging your router to reset it.

Soon Apple will rename iPhone 5, its new name will be iProblem

Did another head to head, 4s vs 5 on 2 different routers at friend's houses. 4s twice as fast, no connection issues, consistent, perfect. 5 had half the speed, often less than that, very erratic, lost connection where 4 didn't. I'm thinking this must be a hardware issue at this point.

Something is severely impairing the 5's wifi range, strength and speed. And it doesn't seem to be a compatability issue between the phone and router. I guess I'll have to exchange and hope for the best. Aggravating.

Same issue on iPhone 4S running iOS 6

I experienced the same issue last night running iOS 6 on an iPhone 4S, issue seemed to be only on my iPhone's WiFi connection as there were other computers using the wireless network at the same time and the issue disappeared when switching to 3G. Typically speedtest.net would range on 20mbps download, but when the issue appeared it was 0.00Mbps. Upload was fine, however.

I have been using Linksys router + DD-WRT open source firmware. Turning off "Afterbuner" option improved WiFi stability. . I use WPA2, AES algorithms.

This is annoying.

I very consistently only get half of the speed on my iPhone 5, compared to everything else I own.

iPad: 11+ Mbps, consistently.
HP laptop: 11+ Mbps, consistently.
MacBook Air: 11+ Mbps, consistently.
iPhone 4: 11+ Mbps, consistently.
iPhone 5: 6 Mbps rather consistently, 2 Mbps sometimes, 10+ Mbps one time, but usually ~6 or so.

All of them are in the same room, on the same wifi, using the same Speedtest.net server.

It is very clearly not a server issue, or a phone vs. computer issue (see the iPhone 4 above). It is 100% the iPhone 5, and the iPhone 5 only.

So... Wtf? Should I go to the Apple store for a replacement or something?

DDustiNN said:

This is annoying.

I very consistently only get half of the speed on my iPhone 5, compared to everything else I own.

iPad: 11+ Mbps, consistently.
HP laptop: 11+ Mbps, consistently.
MacBook Air: 11+ Mbps, consistently.
iPhone 4: 11+ Mbps, consistently.
iPhone 5: 6 Mbps rather consistently, 2 Mbps sometimes, 10+ Mbps one time, but usually ~6 or so.

All of them are in the same room, on the same wifi, using the same Speedtest.net server.

It is very clearly not a server issue, or a phone vs. computer issue (see the iPhone 4 above). It is 100% the iPhone 5, and the iPhone 5 only.

So... Wtf? Should I go to the Apple store for a replacement or something?

Click to expand...

all iOS devices on iOS6?

No issues with my iPad 3rd gen or iPhone 5. Both running iOS 6 on my wpa2 secured network

canesalato said:

all iOS devices on iOS6?

Click to expand...

Negative. iPhone 4 and iPad 1 are both on iOS 5.

But judging from the other posts, that doesn't seem to matter. The iPhone 5 itself seems to be the issue.

I got mine replaced. The apple guy hooked it up to a continuous stream for 30 min and the test showed intermittent slowdowns and it disconnected once too.

Someone said to use the Speedtest app and pick the server so its the same each time. Doing that, I get great speeds on 3 servers. Much more consistent.

This is so weird. Yesterday, I could reproduce the issue consistently...I did at least 50 speed tests, different servers, same servers, you name it. I was getting no more than 100-300KB/s

Today, it's working flawlessly. I didn't reboot the phone. I didn't restart my router.

WTF?

I have created a separate thread for the issue below which looks to be hardware related.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1453666/


Here's how I could cause the wifi to become practically dead. Similar to iphone 4 antenna issues.





Note: Last night I had issues without doing the above, but once I manually selected a different server it went back to 30Mbps. The issue above doesn't matter what server you're testing against.

mnemonix said:

Did you try restarting your defective phone to see if this fixed it?

Mine worked perfectly when I got it. Travelling this weekend wifi ground to a halt and was the same at home when I got back. A reboot this morning and it's back up to speed. It doesn't feel like a hardware problem to me.

Click to expand...

I restarted, restored, everything under the sun.

Throw me in the same boat. 4S and iPad 3 running iOS 6 and getting 17 Mbps. I can't get the 5 above 10 Mbps. Same ping times and upload speed. But significantly different download times. When are they going to figure this out?

iphone 5's

I have 2 iphone 5. Both have the same issue. They are ATT and one is white 16gb and one is 32gb black. Just spoke to Apple and they are replacing both of them. Have an appt with Apple on friday to swap them. Don't waste your time if you have this issue. It is the hardware causing the packet loss. I did a ton of test on the phone and it all pointed to the wireless chipset/antenna causing the issue.

speedtest.net is hard to understand. I tested my iphone and on my macbook and ill get 13.01 on my iphone and 13.50 on download on mac. then ill get like 60 upload and 20 upload on my mac, but then it will vary sometimes on teh phone to 8. but the speed test app will start freezing. so idk is there another app.

also if i run both at the same exact time it makes the iphone one go slow. i don't get it. for it to fluctuate it can't be the phone!

pcmodderz said:

I have 2 iphone 5. Both have the same issue. They are ATT and one is white 16gb and one is 32gb black. Just spoke to Apple and they are replacing both of them. Have an appt with Apple on friday to swap them. Don't waste your time if you have this issue. It is the hardware causing the packet loss. I did a ton of test on the phone and it all pointed to the wireless chipset/antenna causing the issue.

Click to expand...

Did you call a store, or the customer service number? What did you tell them, and how did they acknowledge/describe the issue?

I want to get mine replaced this week.

Thanks!

how do we know this is hardware and not software if its intermittent.

Possible Fix

I had problems of sometimes slow wifi and wifi disconnected and tried all the posted possible solutions with no luck. My iphone 5 wifi is now working perfectly and this is what I did.

- I remained on WEP security, but WPA2 worked fine also.
- Changed my channel from 9 to 7, this gave me a speed increase.
- Disable the N side of my router, G only. Another speed increase.
- QoS settings, disabled WMM.

Also selected a static IP address with a DNS of
24.222.0.94, 24.222.0.95

If you restored from an older iphone ensure both devices are not using the same static IP address, this happened to me and it created connection problems.

These setting gave me an increase in wifi speed but not the random disconnects.

This fixed my random disconnects and been working perfectly ever since.

- backup iphone in itunes.
- Download the IOS 6 firmware for the iphone 5 from here

http://absinthejailbreak.com/all-apple-firmwares-for-iphone-ipad-and-ipod-download-now/

Then click shift-restore (might be update) and select the firmware which will reinstall IOS 6 and erase all content and reset your iphone to factory.

restore your backup and then go into iphone settings>General>Reset and select Reset Network Setting. Once rebooted, Setting> Wi-Fi and select your wifi and enter security string. Then change to static and ensure the IP address isn't used by another wifi device connected to your home wifi network. I found using DNS of 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4 gave me speed problems.

This did the trick for me and solved all my wifi problems. Good luck!!