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3G S Wifi Experiences? (weaker reception? meter off?)

S

Scott-n-Houston

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Apr 27, 2008
1,023
338
Houston (duh)
My wifi meter will show 2 or even 1 bar when very close to my AE. I have my old 3 G close by and it's full bars, so it's not the AE.
That makes me wonder, is it the meter or the actual reception? Experimenting with it is inconclusive really.

Anyone else notice wifi differences or is this a one-off anomaly with mine?
 
I get one bar with the 3GS in my bedroom, where I previously had full bars on the 3G. Annoying.
 
I think it has to do with the 3.0 software. I've noticed much weaker wifi reception on my iPhone3G ever since upgrading to 3.0
 
Same here - my 3GS has rubbish Wifi reception, even compared to my 1G iPod touch...
 
I have same problem on an ipod touch second gen and a new iphone. As soon as I started beta testing 3.0, I noticed the wifi reception dropped considerably.
 
router: Linksys WRT54G
connection: Bellsouth FastAccess 3.0 Mbps

wifi speed from laptop: 2.8 Mbps (speedtest.net)
wifi speed from iphone 3gs: 600 Kbps (speedtest.net)

I'm really wondering why my wifi speed is SO SLOW on my iPhone.
 
Same WiFi signal strength as my 1st gen iPod touch. The phone signal fluctuates, but I've yet to have poor call quality, even at one bar of strength.
 
According to my results log from the speedtest.net app, my 3G got between 7 and 8.5 MBps, and my 3G S gets 10 MBps on average, which is the speed I'm paying my cable internet provider for.
 
3G S vs. 3G on 3.0: 3G S gets one bar. 3G 3 bars (wifi).

Speedtest.net:

3GS: 936 kbps down, 1664 up.
3G: 1915 down, 4070 up.

2nd test:

3GS: 1422 down, 3365 up.
3G: 7406 down, 2256 up.

3rd test:

3GS: 1.63 Mbps down, 1.72 up
3G 4.12 down, 3.43 up

:( 3G S is consistently worse on speed test (by far) and amt of wifi bars shown. Later I'll walk around outside with them.
 
btownguy said:
router: Linksys WRT54G
connection: Bellsouth FastAccess 3.0 Mbps

wifi speed from laptop: 2.8 Mbps (speedtest.net)
wifi speed from iphone 3gs: 600 Kbps (speedtest.net)

I'm really wondering why my wifi speed is SO SLOW on my iPhone.
Click to expand...


i agree my 3gs is MUCH slower than my uMBP sitting in the same room as the airport express (older g version, but still...). so far my 3gs wifi speeds are very similar to using cellular. i've tested using both the "check pipes" app and the Ookla app.

1st iphone so i don't have another to compare with.
 
Apple has botched something with OS 3.0 and wifi -- it is not specific to the 3GS.

I used to get full bars in my bedroom with iPhone 3G and 2.2.1, but now that I have a 3GS, and now that the 3G is updated to 3.0, I have a horrible fluctuating signal and half the time I can't load web sites. I see the same signal fluctuations when both are side by side. This must be related to 3.0, and not the 3GS hardware.

www.apple.com/feedback

^tell them directly
 
Well, that's what we're comparing here. :|

So, I'm disturbed by the recently posted MacRumors story that Apple used the Wifi guts from the 1st gen, not the 3G. I need to read that again and ponder it but my uneducated knee-jerk on it wasn't good.
 
It's hard to say, because Optimum Online sucks and has DNS issues all the time, but I do believe I can say with some certainty that my 3GS Wifi performance has been slightly less impressive than with the 3G.
 
Both my Wifi and Cell signals are worse on my 3GS than my 3G. I tried to call Apple because I live in a 1-2 bar area and basically can't get service on my 3GS and they quickly pushed me to AT&T who were absolutely useless (the guy basically suggested that I shouldn't have bought the phone because of my coverage area).

I bought Applecare off ebay and will try again in a week. I am terrible at being pushy and getting a replacement sent or whatever but something is definitely up. It sucks that I sold my 3G and now I can't use my new $499 phone in my house or use Wifi in my upstairs office.

(FWIW: I had the original 2G as well. The 3G was marginally better. I would guesstimate that my 3GS is 20-25% worse for both WIFI and cell reception)
 
I'm getting MUCH better speed on speedtest app with 3G vs. 3GS.

Hopefully if enough people send the feedback, the faster an update might come in for it. Unless they did indeed, dumb down the Wifi guts.
 
I have noticed this also on my 3gs, wifi reception distance is way way down. Although when I am close to my ap the speed is way faster than the 2g.

My 3gs when about 20 feet from the ap gets 10-11 Mbps

My 2g phone at the same distance gets 3-4 Mbps

but at a distance the signal is horrile where it used to be fine before the 3.0 software. I liked using my wifi when I was in my car port. Few hundred yards away from my house, now I can't, but 3g is fast enough I don't really notice, I just have my battery drained faster now.
 
Finally some talk about this, I posted something about this over the weekend and did not really get much of a response. I have done dozens of side by side tests between my 1st gen. iPhone and the 3GS and the results are consistent.....3GS is WAY slower. Both the phones WiFi signal strength meters act identical when they are together. Both are running 3.0 as well. Here is one set of results between the two. Same wireless network (Airport Express)and same test server back to back tests. I also switched my Time Capsule back to b/g/n and ran a test and the 3GS is slow on it too.:confused: My brothers 2G iPod Touch was getting the usual network speeds before the 3.0 and now with the 3.0 they are slow like my 3GS.
 

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I hope they get a fix out soon. My speeds on wifi are mostly between 0 and 100kbps :mad:

I've been using Speed Test (speedtest.net) & Xtreme speedtest, both downloads are free via the apps store.
 
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