Unable to connect to WiFi when iPhone internet is down

[AMSOS]

Hi all. Is the working of the iPhone WiFi connected to the mobile phone network in some way?

I use an M1 MBA and iPhone 12 (iOS 18). Both run the same on the VPN account. We’ve had some outages with the phone provider recently. That’s when I noticed something strange.

The MBA connects to my institutions WiFi and the internet works fine. But the phone does not even show the “umbrella” icon for the WiFi, and therefore does not connect to the institutions internet.

Then when I shift to the mobile network (4G/5G/LTE) I see that the phone network is down. i.e., I can make normal calls, but the phone internet doesn’t work.

It took me some time to realise, but I feel that the phone is prioritising my phone network over WiFi, instead of keeping them independent. Therefore, when it sees that the phone internet is not available, it seems to block WiFi from connecting properly to the nearby modem.

Of course, everything goes back to normal the moment the phone internet outage ends.

I’d much appreciate any solutions or suggestions you may have!

 

[BigBlur]

Is the working of the iPhone WiFi connected to the mobile phone network in some way?

No, the phone network does not affect Wi-Fi.

But the phone does not even show the “umbrella” icon for the WiFi, and therefore does not connect to the institutions internet.

You should be seeing the Wi-Fi signal icon ("umbrella") whether your phone is connected to cellular or not. Both the cellular signal bars and Wi-Fi signal bars display at the same time in the status bar. Make sure your phone is actually connected to Wi-Fi.

Of course, everything goes back to normal the moment the phone internet outage ends.

Again, are you sure the phone is using Wi-Fi when the cellular data outage ends? Turn off cellular data (or put your phone in airplane mode) via Control Center and then enable Wi-Fi. Does that work?