Bought Airport Extreme because of wifi issues but I feel like...

[Peanut207]

Apple's B#%@! Lol I've been having wifi issues with my iPad since the day I bought it. Bought it on the day it came out. Was dropping connection...requiring me to constantly enter password etc. Figuring I only had a few days before my 14 day return policy was up I went to my local Best Buy where I bought it with the intention of swapping my iPad for a new one in hopes it would solve my wifi problems. Of course, they didn't have any ipads in stock and when asked when they would get more in they had no clue. So me, loving my Ipad as much as I do and didn't want to go home without one, thought of alternatives. I remembered reading how people who were using the Airport Extreme weren't experiencing any wifi issues.

So long and behold I bought the Airport Extreme and 2 days later haven't dropped my connection once. I'm very happy about that and has made the iPad even more of a joy to use ( not having to constantly put in my password) but I feel like Apple should take more responsibility with the wifi issue because it is definitely there whether it's a software issue or hardware issue. If my iPhone or laptops have never had any problems with dropping connection there is no excuse why soo many ipads should be having this problem. I have no idea how Apple didn't see this coming!

 

[samcraig]

I guess I'm amused by these threads because I have an old school linksys and haven't had any of these wifi problems some people are having...

 

[CarboysDesire]

How old was your router? Maybe it was time to upgrade anyway.


Mine is a 5-year old Netgear that I am thinking of replacing it too, with an Airport Extreme. I'm not hardware smart--does it work much better? Is the range very big? I have a single-story large home so I need a large range. The one I have is a Netgear Rangemax Mimo g and the model is WPN824. 5 years ago I bought it to replace a regular d-link router with an inadequate range.

If anyone can tell me if I should upgrade that would be appreciated.

 

[Peanut207]

How old was your router? Maybe it was time to upgrade anyway.


Mine is a 5-year old Netgear that I am thinking of replacing it too, with an Airport Extreme. I'm not hardware smart--does it work much better? Is the range very big? I have a single-story large home so I need a large range. The one I have is a Netgear Rangemax Mimo g and the model is WPN824. 5 years ago I bought it to replace a regular d-link router with an inadequate range.

If anyone can tell me if I should upgrade that would be appreciated.[/

It's a Verizon Fios router...not old at all.

 

[GregGebhardt]

Mine is a 7 year old commercial Cisco system that half my neighborhood uses and my iPad screams with it. I was so surprised how fast WiFi was on the iPad. It does the same on my new Netgear at the office with full encryption.

 

[bowlerman625]

How old was your router? Maybe it was time to upgrade anyway.


Mine is a 5-year old Netgear that I am thinking of replacing it too, with an Airport Extreme. I'm not hardware smart--does it work much better? Is the range very big? I have a single-story large home so I need a large range. The one I have is a Netgear Rangemax Mimo g and the model is WPN824. 5 years ago I bought it to replace a regular d-link router with an inadequate range.

If anyone can tell me if I should upgrade that would be appreciated.

My experience has taught me that for the most part all the Apple products play very well together. I know this should not matter but that has been my experience since I got my first Mac 18 months ago.

 

[Peanut207]

Bowlerman625;

My iPad is blazing fast since I've had the Airport Extreme. I'm Extreme-ly happy with it. Haha ok that was cheesy. But seriously, I couldn't be happier with it other than having to spend the $ for it.

 

[nando2323]

It's a Verizon Fios router...not old at all.

Well there's your problem. A friend of mine could not get Xbox live to work over that POC for his life many resets different xbox's and different routers. That thing is a POC and Verizon should be ashamed of themselves for putting out a crappy product. I have an AE at home and have brought my iPad to multiple locations with multiple different routers have not had one single issue at all.

 

[DravenGSX]

The common theme in all of these threads is ... FIOS.

 

[undrpsi]

Well there's your problem. A friend of mine could not get Xbox live to work over that POC for his life many resets different xbox's and different routers. That thing is a POC and Verizon should be ashamed of themselves for putting out a crappy product. I have an AE at home and have brought my iPad to multiple locations with multiple different routers have not had one single issue at all.

Argh...XBOX live and DSL (ATT) don't play well...went thru 4 weeks of troubleshooting (won't bore you with ATT's bad service center workers). Finally returned to cable modem...no problem.

I use an AEBS Dual-band N and an Apple Express N (to extend my network) and have no problems. The problem was being generated by the POS motorola DSL modem. My cable modem is a 5 year old No Name modem (internals have Q-Shing Inc on them) that Time Warner installed...and it give me fast and no error service. Something to do with the ping being messed with downstream of my wireless (inside DSL modem itself). Even though you could use the html setup to tweak the settings...you never got close to what you actually selected. Hot *rumor* from a cable installer buddy is this is an undisclosed governer to keep you from maxing the bandwidth...don't know if that's true. I do know nettest showed my 6meg cable was getting up to 11 megs at times (and averaged 7-8 megs). DSL was 'supposed' to be 6 megs but never got above 5.4 megs max (to be honest it never got below 5 megs though). I also noticed very poor performance from all the other computers when we had DSL....no wonder it's so much cheaper.

Maybe we should have a poll on DSL or Cable to see if that could be causing some probs on our iPads?

 

[nolesfan]

The common theme in all of these threads is ... FIOS.

I had a airport extreme and a linksys and my ipad would not work with either, go figure. And that was several hours of trouble shooting with the guys from apple. Bottom line, mine was just defective, but I should have my new one on Tuesday so better luck with it i hope. And to be honest, you should not have had to go buy a 175 dollar router to make your ipad work, I know that was your decision but i wouldn't have after spending 700 on the ipad alone. But if your happy, that's all that matters.

 

[ballen420]

I've got a FiOS router too and after searching found a quick and easy fix. Change the broadcast channel to 11 and your security to WPA. Problem solved.

I'd return that router and spend that money elsewhere.

 

[bowlerman625]

Bowlerman625;

My iPad is blazing fast since I've had the Airport Extreme. I'm Extreme-ly happy with it. Haha ok that was cheesy. But seriously, I couldn't be happier with it other than having to spend the $ for it.

I'm glad for you!

I have the Time Capsule product which has the built in airport extreme. My wife's WiFi iPad performs very well. The internet speeds are comparable to what I get on my MacBook Air in the house.

 

[wilycoder]

I just got an Airport Extreme yesterday.

OP make sure you enable the 5GHZ band and join the 5GHZ network the Airport Extreme offers. It is FAST

With 5GHZ I was getting a full signal strength on the third floor of my house and my router is in the basement. When I connect to the regular network of Airport Extreme (2.4Ghz band) I get a weak signal on the third floor.

 

[CrAkD]

did you try changing the fios routers encryption from WEP to WPA? that seems to be the issue with the ipad and I know my fios router is default on WEP.

 

[sdsvtdriver]

Well there's your problem. A friend of mine could not get Xbox live to work over that POC for his life many resets different xbox's and different routers. That thing is a POC and Verizon should be ashamed of themselves for putting out a crappy product. I have an AE at home and have brought my iPad to multiple locations with multiple different routers have not had one single issue at all.

The Actiontec is a great piece of hardware. The only issue is the VZW firmware only allows for a small NAT table which affects P2P stuff only. The primary problem with FIOS routers is the user. It isn't as simple to use and has some powerful abilities that normal users can easily screw things up with.

 

[marksman]

How old was your router? Maybe it was time to upgrade anyway.


Mine is a 5-year old Netgear that I am thinking of replacing it too, with an Airport Extreme. I'm not hardware smart--does it work much better? Is the range very big? I have a single-story large home so I need a large range. The one I have is a Netgear Rangemax Mimo g and the model is WPN824. 5 years ago I bought it to replace a regular d-link router with an inadequate range.

If anyone can tell me if I should upgrade that would be appreciated.

I don't know if you switched, but a lot of the old netgears just plain sucked.

I had one I got about 5 years ago for free (was literally for free with rebate from Fry's), and the thing over-heated perpetually causing it to have to be rebooted all the time. It was a wreck.

Even if you aren't having a problem, I would look at upgrading at somepoint, although I still feel like we are in transition to N so if you can wait and are not having problems I would.

did you try changing the fios routers encryption from WEP to WPA? that seems to be the issue with the ipad and I know my fios router is default on WEP.

Nobody should be running WEP in the first place. I know there is some legacy stuff that uses it, but in that case you might as well just turn encryption off. I would suggest that as a first step test for anyone having drop problems. Turn off encryption altogether and see if that improves things. I don't want you to leave it that way, just to test. And as CrAkD said, use WPA, not WEP.

Using WEP is like having a key-shaped rock with the key in it on your front porch to your house.

 

[jimbo1mcm]

Got Rid of Linksys !!

Got an Airport Extreme before I got the IPad, just to make sure things worked well. Can not be happier. The Airport Extreme works perfectly well with the iPad and even picked up my laptop to enable wireless printing on it. Yeah it's expensive, but worth it.

 

[Merlosso]

With a FiOS router and Xbox Live, give the Xbox a static IP at the high end of the IP range (so there are no conflicts with other devices) and set up DMZ for it in the router settings.

For the iPad, do what others have said and change from WEP to WPA and set a specific channel (like 11).

The router itself isn't bad, it just requires too much from the user to get all your devices working properly. Now if it was only an 802.11n router then we would be set...

 

[Nash Bridges]

How old was your router? Maybe it was time to upgrade anyway.


Mine is a 5-year old Netgear that I am thinking of replacing it too, with an Airport Extreme. I'm not hardware smart--does it work much better? Is the range very big? I have a single-story large home so I need a large range. The one I have is a Netgear Rangemax Mimo g and the model is WPN824. 5 years ago I bought it to replace a regular d-link router with an inadequate range.

If anyone can tell me if I should upgrade that would be appreciated.

Replacing a home router will resolve your issue when you are home, but what if you need to take the iPad to a hotel or someones office? What happens then? Are Airport sales going to spike because they work with the iPad. Out of curiosity I would like to know if someone who has the issue with having to re-enter the encryption password can alleviate all of their WiFi issues by removing encryption from their router totally.

 

[bosox2009]

How old was your router? Maybe it was time to upgrade anyway.


Mine is a 5-year old Netgear that I am thinking of replacing it too, with an Airport Extreme. I'm not hardware smart--does it work much better? Is the range very big? I have a single-story large home so I need a large range. The one I have is a Netgear Rangemax Mimo g and the model is WPN824. 5 years ago I bought it to replace a regular d-link router with an inadequate range.

If anyone can tell me if I should upgrade that would be appreciated.[/

It's a Verizon Fios router...not old at all.

Crud! I have a FIOS router. I hope it plays nice once I get my iPad. Was it simple and quick adding the Airport Extreme to the FIOS setup? OK, I'll google wep/wap fios ipad setup, etc... unless some kind soul puts up a "how-to" link. Thanks!

 

[stringbeanie]

OP make sure you enable the 5GHZ band and join the 5GHZ network the Airport Extreme offers. It is FAST

With 5GHZ I was getting a full signal strength on the third floor of my house and my router is in the basement. When I connect to the regular network of Airport Extreme (2.4Ghz band) I get a weak signal on the third floor.

Just very curious how you do this. I am having some significant signal issues with my Airport Extreme. Thanks in advance.

 

[klrobinson999]

There is no better Wi-Fi than the Airport Extreme. Period.

 

[h3nG]

I like how apple try to make it sound like it's a problem with peoples router and not an iPad. Let us know if the speeds are better for the iPad in general. I don't think I have any issues other than randomly having the signal quality drop every now an then.

 

[Trek2100]

Crud! I have a FIOS router. I hope it plays nice once I get my iPad. Was it simple and quick adding the Airport Extreme to the FIOS setup? OK, I'll google wep/wap fios ipad setup, etc... unless some kind soul puts up a "how-to" link. Thanks!

If what has been already stated is true, that is; change your wep to wpa encryption and change the channel to 11. You have to go into your fios settings: url=192.168.1.1

1. select Wireless settings
2. select Basic security settings
3. change channel from automatic to 11 and turn off wep
4. select Advanced security settings
5. select wpa or wpa2

Just to verify you can call verizon. They have always been helpful in the past.

Buying the airport extreme would be a waste of money. The FIOS router is a G router, unless they have a newer model that has N. Since your connection from the FIOS box to the router is coax cable and not ethernet, you would have to connect the airport extreme to the FIOS router. That is G out from FIOS and G in to airport. You cannot get N out from a G in unless someone can explain to me how you get more out of less in. Thats like trying to get 20 amps out of a 15 amp circuit breaker.