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iPhone Does NOT Support 802.11n!

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daveporter

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 8, 2006
212
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Green Cove Springs, FL
This one is hard to believe. My brand new iPhone does NOT support 802.11n Wi-Fi. We have a new Airport Extreme router here running 802.11n at 5 Ghz which we use for our three Macs (all 802.11n 5 GHz capable) and our two Apple TVs (also 802.11n capable).

I just got off the phone with Apple tech support who told me that my new iPhone wont connect to the network unless I go back, reconfigure the network to enable 802.11g, the old 2.4 GHz frequency setting which will lower its performance for everything else just to use the iPhone (which will reduce the ability to use my two ATVs at the same time to stream movies without problems (which I do not encounter now). No where in the iPhone ads, the documentation that I have seen or anywhere has anyone stated that the iPhone would not support 802.11n. Given that Apple is really pushing 802.11n, and that the new Airport Extreme supports it, why in the world would Apple only enable its new flagship product to use old 802.11g technology?

The solution that the Apple tech support person came up with for we was to see if there was another Wi-Fi source that I could connect to in the neighborhood! You have to be kidding!

Well, guess I will forgo Wi-Fi use at home and just use it when I am on the road. This sucks in the worst way!

Dave
 
Are you really complaining about this? It's pretty clear everywhere that the iPhone is 802.11b/g compatible.

Setting your router up in b/g compatible mode won't severely hinder its abilities. I have a new Airport Extreme running in 802.11n with compatibility mode and have no problems connecting with my iPhone.
 
and the problem is uhhh, what, exactly? You will notice NO difference with respect to internet browsing, as normal cable speeds don't even come close to the theoretical maximum throughput speed of 802.11N. It WILL affect the throughput speeds of data transfer between your Macs, however, but that should be no big deal, unless you're constantly transferring massive files between them.

In the words of the philosopher Bart Simpson: don't have a cow, man. Enable 802.11G on your Airport Extreme and have a go at WiFi on your iPhone. I only have an 802.11G network (the only 802.11N device I have is my MacBook Pro), and I was rockin' and rollin' last night and this morning.

:apple:HawaiiMacAddict
 
Or just add a 2nd access point... problem solved. No big deal...
 
enabling b/g connectivity will not slow down the network -- perceptibly at least. whereas connecting an 802.11b device to an 802.11g network would drag the entire network down to 802.11b speeds, 802.11n will not. it penalizes the slowest protocol, by giving the N devices priority, so you iphone won't be quite as fast if there's a load of traffic on the network.

i do believe that 802.11n working purely in "n-mode" operates solely in the 5Ghz spectrum, in mixed mode it will operate in both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz, and since 2.4Ghz is a more crowded spectrum you might find some minor performance hiccups.
 
if you bothered yo read the specs you'd see the iPhone never made any mention of supporting 802n.

Just get another router they are cheap and there is no point in having your iPhone on the same network as the other devices since the iPhone can't access file shares
 
We have run a business from out home. There are three macs in use most of the time (all connected via Wi-Fi to our network, sharing files as well as connecting to the internet. In addition, we have two ATVs often streaming video content from two of the Macs all via Wi-Fi. When we tried to run all this using the 2.4 GHz radio frequency ( a must for 802.11g compatibility) we often had drop outs or network slow down when ever someone would connect with an 802.11g device. When we went to 802.11n 5 GHz only, all of these problems disappeared. In our case, we are pushing 802.11n at 5 GHz speeds (remember at 5 GHz you can use dual channel operation that you can't use at 2.4 GHz) to its limit. So, in our case, yes this is a big deal. And, no, non of the Apple public documentation for the iPhone was clear about its inability to support 802.11n. I would not guessed that it would not support the newest Wi-Fi standards.

Dave

An update, I just got off the phone with a friend that works in sales at an Apple store nearby and he told me that they have seen a number of folks at the genius bar today that were having the same problem and were equally as surprised as I was about this. Many were long-term Mac owners and were really angry about the lack of 802.11n and the lack of adequate easy to find forewarning.
 
Putting 802.11n in a mobile device would be like putting Class 1 Bluetooth in a mobile device... madness.

hayduke said:
Sorry you are disappointed, but I hope you still enjoy it. You could buy a very cheap 802.11g router and use that as an access point for your new toy. You can probably do this for ~40 bucks these days.
Click to expand...

Indeed, this is exactly what I do. I have an AirPort Extreme which I use for the 5 802.11n Macs in the house, and have a Linksys 802.11G router for my Windows Mobile devices. No iPhone yet, but when I get one it will use the G router too.
 
My router supports b/g/n simultaneously. The computers that support N get an N signal, and the computers that support G get a G signal. Doesn't the airport have such a mode?
 
ventro said:
My router supports b/g/n simultaneously. The computers that support N get an N signal, and the computers that support G get a G signal. Doesn't the airport have such a mode?
Click to expand...

It does, but that mode is slightly slower and less reliable than a pure n network. By far the best solution is to have a separate 802.11g access point providing a dedicated network for g clients, as both myself and others have already pointed out.
 
maverick808 said:
It does, but that mode is slightly slower and less reliable than a pure n network. By far the best solution is to have a separate 802.11g access point providing a dedicated network for g clients, as both myself and others have already pointed out.
Click to expand...

but for what you can do on iPhone, will the speed matter that much after all :confused:
 
defeated said:
but for what you can do on iPhone, will the speed matter that much after all :confused:
Click to expand...

Of course it won't matter for the phone accessing the Internet at all. However, if you have an 802.11n network and drop it to g compatible mode then it will slow down communications between the other devices on your network (albeit minimally). For example, if you had two Macs on the n network and were copying files between them then this would be slower if you were in g compatible mode. For most the difference wouldn't be noticeable, but for some it will be worth paying the extra to have two distinct access points for n and g.
 
daveporter said:
This one is hard to believe. My brand new iPhone does NOT support 802.11n Wi-Fi. We have a new Airport Extreme router here running 802.11n at 5 Ghz which we use for our three Macs (all 802.11n 5 GHz capable) and our two Apple TVs (also 802.11n capable).

I just got off the phone with Apple tech support who told me that my new iPhone wont connect to the network unless I go back, reconfigure the network to enable 802.11g, the old 2.4 GHz frequency setting which will lower its performance for everything else just to use the iPhone (which will reduce the ability to use my two ATVs at the same time to stream movies without problems (which I do not encounter now). No where in the iPhone ads, the documentation that I have seen or anywhere has anyone stated that the iPhone would not support 802.11n. Given that Apple is really pushing 802.11n, and that the new Airport Extreme supports it, why in the world would Apple only enable its new flagship product to use old 802.11g technology?

The solution that the Apple tech support person came up with for we was to see if there was another Wi-Fi source that I could connect to in the neighborhood! You have to be kidding!

Well, guess I will forgo Wi-Fi use at home and just use it when I am on the road. This sucks in the worst way!

Dave
Click to expand...

This is one of the reasons it's called a MOBILE PHONE.;)

And Apple has had LOTS of documentation on the iPhone WiFi specs for 6 months.
 
daveporter said:
Excuse me but I have a PhD in engineering and have owned an engineering firm for over 30 years...want to bet which one of us is more knowledgeable about technical issues?
Click to expand...
There was a woman recently that took $100,000 in cash down to the at&t store and bought "first place" in line for $800. She declared she was going to purchase everything in the store, and upon walking in, discovered that there was a 1 iPhone per person limit. The idea that you have a solid 802.11n network that you do not wish to support an 801.11g device on, and you didn't read the fairly basic specs that have been on Apple's website for 6 months, really seems weird to me. Almost as weird as someone going to the bank, withdrawing $100,000 in cash, looking to buy out a store's supply of iPhones and not calling ahead to find out it they had a per customer limit. I'm sure she's complaining too. From her perspective, it doesn't make sense and she's frustrated.

Kind of how I feel reading your first post. Part of me sympathizes, but the other part of me thinks "but you should have checked this out, a while ago."

I just bought the 802.11n capable Airport Extreme to network my home office as my DLINK has been giving decidedly POOR WiFi performance of late. Part of me thinks it'd be nice if iPhone were "n", but I'm just happy with the range for "n" that let's me use my iPhone outside on the same network without much trouble. So, I'm counting my blessings.

I think the sarcastic reactions are do to the BOLD statement as the title of the thread (!), assuming this is a revelation. I'm sure most people were already clear it was b/g.

~ CB
 
I don't understand why one would really need 802.11n. With only 4-8 GB of storage, you're not losing that much time even if you do transfer a large amount of files.
 
daveporter said:
The lack of 802.11n capabilities was not disclosed at that meeting as well.
Click to expand...

You talk as if all other phones have 802.11n as standard. There is not a single phone in the world, other than perhaps prototypes in labs, that have 802.11n. Indeed, g isn't even that common. Most only have b.
 
I think we might should cut him some slack, i know a lot of people that were so hyped up over the phone they missed some important info on it. 3 of my friends didn't know the biz line issue.
 
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