You are not understanding the underlying problem. ANY wireless access point will have a region where you can get reception but the bandwidth that is able to be provided will be very marginal. Yes, even your precious AirPort Extreme.
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Almost 6 Years Now & iPhone Still Can't Gracefully Transition from WiFi to Cell
- Thread starter kas23
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You are not understanding the underlying problem. ANY wireless access point will have a region where you can get reception but the bandwidth that is able to be provided will be very marginal. Yes, even your precious AirPort Extreme.
Are you sure you even have strong cellular connection in a parking garage? I would turn off WiFi altogether and examine your cellular coverage in these areas. Parking garages and elevators, which are thickly layered with metal and concrete, are notorious for killing any sort of signal.
I don't know what else to comment on at this point. My router reaches very far at home until I'm a few houses down the street, and it outperforms the stock wifi router provided by my ISP.
If you actually think Apple can fix it, I suggest you send them a comment form.
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How do I not understand the problem? Improving his router will solve his problem. No smartphone is able to do what the OP wants, not other mobile OS' either. Clearly there are reasons, so the best way to solve his problem is to upgrade his hardware.
It might solve this particular problem for the OP, but the problem still exists, just further away from the base station. What you are proposing is a work-around to the actual, underlying problem that iOS assumes that if you have wifi connectivity, you have internet connectivity. We all know that is obviously not always the case. It should be a simple "fix" to check for a better cellular data connection if the wifi connection is displaying high latencies.
This is similar to dead zones for carriers. While networks and connectivity are always improving, can we not survive for a several second transition from WiFi until cellular? I'm not shooting down anyone's experiences, but I think there's a lot to be said here ...
You still aren't getting it. The problem is that there ISN'T a transition from wifi to cellular because wifi is the preferred network 100% of the time, whether or not there is good internet connectivity.
I agree on this point, iOS 6 came out w/ WIFI switching for this same issue but between WIFI networks AFAIK, I guess it's not possible to code to reactivate 3G w/out full killing of WIFI due to some limitation we don't know of the chip since all phones do that maybe?
TS you can either move the router a little closer to the garage or get a WIFI extender for that part of the house and take the original farther away so it doesn't reach the garage at all so that when you get to the car you will still get WIFI signal from the extender and be able to do what you want before leaving your house.
The path from the exit of the building to the parking garage (open air, btw) has perfect LTE coverage if I shut-off WiFi, but with WiFi on, it hangs.
This is why you don't understand the problem. It has nothing to do with the quality or strength of the router. Every router has an area at its very edge of coverage where its strength is the weakest. It is at this edge of coverage where the iPhone will just not give up on trying to establish a WiFi connection (and allow LTE to take over). It is at this edge where you get one bar of WiFi and you Internet connect will cease to exist until you either kill WiFi or travel further away from the router.
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Bingo.
And there won't be because radios can't handle this type of logic. I understand it clearly, I'm saying don't expect a fix in the near future. This crossover period creates too much gray area in data management.
Dwalls90 is pretty much on the spot, you would be surprised at how difficult it is to transition from Wifi to cell seamlessly, let alone without any interruption.
Heck, even the AT&T microcell can't transfer calls from AT&T->WiFi.
Heck, even the AT&T microcell can't transfer calls from AT&T->WiFi.
That's ********. We aren't talking about transferring from cellular voice to VOIP here, just redirecting IP traffic from wifi to cellular. Current devices can seemlessly transition from cellular to wifi already.
What makes you think that it is a radio/hardware problem? How do you think wifi tethering works? Anyways, multipathing is far from a foreign concept in the networking world and can be done entirely in software.
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Since you obviously have no idea what you're talking about, I suggest you educate yourself on the matter.
Might as well as start on Wikipedia I suppose.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_handover
Not really that hard, apple had "WIFI plus 3G" in the iOS 6 beta and it dropped weak WIFI & connected to 3G. Wondering if is still hidden like Panorama was though and could be just a simple playlist hack.
How is that in any conflict with what I have said?
Dropping a weak WiFi signal to switch over to a better cellular data connection can't be that hard when things work nearly perfectly the other way around.
Killed battery life, iOS 6 betas had far worse battery life. And it didn't make it to the GM for a reason. Because cellular data was being phantom-ly used in place of WiFi, causing erratic data billings. Does no one remember this?
The issue was not battery life or phantom issues, those could be fixed like anything on a beta that comes out for the first time. Apple I believe decided to remove it because they still have not decided how elegant they want to represent the exchange to the end customer so that they know they moved out of WIFI into 3G so that their Tier Data Plans don't get sucked out. I believe this is gonna be a feature of iOS 7 though. You are speaking like you know the official reason for them dropping it out of the GM and making it seem impossible, but you don't know, just like the rest of us.
I have a similar problem. At work I'm constantly switching off WiFi because certain websites and services are blocked by the filter. (Pandora for example is blocked, but TuneIn Radio isn't). When I launch something that is blocked the phone just hangs. Really annoying.
I have the same issue, complicated by my ISP's providers way of providing WiFI roaming throughout the UK. Basically one can download their app, BT Wi-fi and theoretically one can log on to any BT WiFi router.
The problem is that the app is a smelly, smoldering pile of manure because it requires one to open the app and log in manually each time: Imagine that you walk from your house to a bus stop and want to check the bus schedule. At your house your on your own internet, then 3G as you go out of range, but then right in the middle of downloading the bus schedule you come into range of another BT WiFi router. Now 3G stops and then the WiFi networks waits for your manual login via BT's accursed app. So you press the button. And then walk further to the stop only to find your out of range of the previous WiFi but in range of another BT router. Go back to the £^&$%!&^%$& BT app and log in manually ... again. Repeat endlessly. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200.
Bloody annoying.I wish either BT woudl configure its roaming WiFi with a more conventional way of logging in (like a user-unique ID and password like any other WiFi network), or that Apple would work on switching seamlessly between 3G/LTE and WiFi.
Correct, it's just stupid. It's like its been designed by someone who never uses the service in the real world.
Yeah, seems like this works fine for some and not for others...perhaps maybe even fine for most and not for a few.
I have this exact same issue.
I'm in university halls of residence, and I've got a wifi network set up in my room using an AirPort Express.
When I'm in the kitchen, I'm literally just out of range of my wifi network (it works in the regions of the kitchen closest to my room), but if I'm elsewhere in the kitchen my 3G doesn't work.
It's nothing to do with my 3G connection, because if I turn my wifi completely off in settings, 3G works absolutely fine.
I'm in university halls of residence, and I've got a wifi network set up in my room using an AirPort Express.
When I'm in the kitchen, I'm literally just out of range of my wifi network (it works in the regions of the kitchen closest to my room), but if I'm elsewhere in the kitchen my 3G doesn't work.
It's nothing to do with my 3G connection, because if I turn my wifi completely off in settings, 3G works absolutely fine.
Well, as others have said, it's not signal problem, but rather a borderline transitional problem. No matter how strong your wifi signal is, as you move there will be a time when you are at the border where your wifi signal is not strong enough and at that point a cellular connection should be used.
Wouldn't the solution simply for iOS to keep track of both wifi signal strength and data transfer rate, and when both are below some thresholds, switch to cellular connection?
Wouldn't the solution simply for iOS to keep track of both wifi signal strength and data transfer rate, and when both are below some thresholds, switch to cellular connection?
It all depends on your user practices. If you spend time in this "gray area" of poor WiFi coverage, you have this problem. If you just waltz right through this area and don't linger, you don't have this problem.
The wireless N router that verizon gives is actually not that bad as far as range is concerned.
ALso OP, if you do not have FiOS tv, you can hook up your AEBS to your ONT box and have verizon switch you to ethernet instead of coax. If you have their TV you have to use their router.
ALso OP, if you do not have FiOS tv, you can hook up your AEBS to your ONT box and have verizon switch you to ethernet instead of coax. If you have their TV you have to use their router.
My guess is it is by design. Personally i'd much rather my phone search in vain for a wireless AP for a bit longer than prematurely switch to cellular and cost me more money.