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(UK) So How Bad Is The Wi-Fi Problem?

There are issues...

Mine are primarily with AT&T accounts like at Starbucks - if I was having that kind of problem with any other wifi I would just delete it and that usually fixes the problem but unfortunately you don't have the option of deleting the AT&T account.

On it I get the same 'full signal, no signal' reporting others have and I didn't have it at all the first couple of weeks. Their signal is strong - my iPhone has full signal and eWiFi app shows a strong signal - the iPad just isn't doing something with it.

And there is something wonky about the software in other areas - I can get around the Starbucks problem by tethering to my iPhone, but even after the iPhone is out of tethering mode and turned off my iPad is still showing a full strength connect to it and trying to use it until I actually go into the Network settings - then after about 15 seconds the iPhone tether account will disappear.

Seems to me its all software problems that will be fixed. All my 'deletable' wifi spots are working fine or do if I delete and resign up. Home I have full signal all around the house using N.

It wouldn't prevent me from buying one but I still hope the bugfix is soon and sooner than 4.0
 
The issues stopes for a bit but now they have came back again.

Just 5 minutes ago the connection dropped and reconnected (the blue box with 'connected' popped up) three times in a couple of minutes.

Getting a bit peed off now.
 
I gave the ipad a static ip address and set the router channel to 11 (why does that sound like a joke?) last night, judging by today it's solved the problem \o/
 
Mine is a nightmare, won't connect to my sky router at all. Have another virgin router in the house which it will connect to but every time you wake it you need to connect again and yesterday it kept dropping the connection.

I love the ipad though so am putting up with it until Apple releases a patch.
 
mcdj said:
B. On the other hand, why would WiFi issues be any different in the UK?
Click to expand...
The UK & Europe can (legally) use more channels (1-13) than the US (1-11)

No real differece apart from that though.
 
JulianL said:
Yup. I'm still up at my mum's house so on a different router. I've probably done about 5 hours use so far without a single dropout so it seems pretty clear that it doesn't like my router at home. I chose my home router mostly for the integrated gigabit LAN switch (I have a NAS connected so need the speed) so I really don't want to spend over 100 quid to replace it with one that still might not work.
Click to expand...

I've had a similar experience using a Belkin N+ Wireless router (Ralink RT3052F Wireless chipset). However, the same iPad works great with SpeedTouch 780 which has an older Broadcom BCM4318 802.11g Wireless chipset.

I'd recommend you take a chance and change your router to one that you know to be compatible.
 
SOLLERBOY said:
Mine is a nightmare, won't connect to my sky router at all. Have another virgin router in the house which it will connect to but every time you wake it you need to connect again and yesterday it kept dropping the connection.

I love the ipad though so am putting up with it until Apple releases a patch.
Click to expand...

I know this doesn't really help but I've got the virgin router (I believe it's a netgear but it's been a while since I had to go near it so could be wrong on that) and my iPad hasn't had a problem yet. Never drops, never glitches, never looses connection when waking. Only slight oddness has been the signal strength going from 3 to 1 bars for no apparent reason but that could be the neighbours turning on a microwave for all I know.
 
I got a 64Gb 3G iPad yesterday. In my upstairs office now - iPhone is connected to wifi (full strength) iMac is connected (ditto) iPad is using 3g as the network has been lost. :rolleyes:

I'm using a newish Netgear router and nothing else in the house has problems with it. Glad I got 3G as the functionality of the iPad would be knackered if I has to rely on the wi-fi connection.
 
Ok so far I have used 5 different routers at different peoples houses and only had problems with one of them and that is really temperamental anyway! Mine is a linksys a/b one (I know but other things have come first), then there's my dad's dlink a/b/g/n one, which as mentioned is temperamental, then my uncle's wanadoo a/b/g one, a time capsule and finally a new airport base station. None of which I have a problem connecting to apart from the router being the problem!
 
Ok, I reported my iPad as having no problems but over the last couple of days I've had some real issues.

Dropouts and some really slow connections although the wifi signal icon shows the three rings, been logging this using the speed net iPad app and have some real slow speeds recorded.

Last night I setup my dlink dsl-2470 and ran the Ethernet connection from my linksys into this, set the channel to 6 and wpa2 in N mode, really great, speed net app report speeds approaching 4m which is good for where I live, this afternoon back from work and the same problem again, cannot connect to the dlink using the iPad, my macbook has no problem, deleted the dlink connection and gone back to my linksys connection and everything is working again.

Wasted another two hours, magical............
 
imho based on the annecdotal evidence it does seem to me as though you're more likely to have problems if you have one of the newer 802.11n based wireless routers as opposed to an older router with a more established 802.11b/g chipset; that would account for a relative 'minority' of iPad users experiencing these problems.

Unfortunately the waters get muddy when you throw in issues caused by the comparitively weaker reception (of the wifi-only model) and the reported DHCP lease renewal issue; making it difficult to conclusively point to a single solution when someone reports a 'wifi issue'.

Update: Interesting article here which seems to back this up:

iPad Wi-Fi complaints echo those of Nexus One, iPod Touch

I'd bet you're more likely to have trouble-free operation if your wireless router uses a Broadcom based chipset (which a lot of them do!)
 
friedkat said:
imho based on the annecdotal evidence it does seem to me as though you're more likely to have problems if you have one of the newer 802.11n based wireless routers as opposed to an older router with a more established 802.11b/g chipset; that would account for a relative 'minority' of iPad users experiencing these problems.

Unfortunately the waters get muddy when you throw in issues caused by the comparitively weaker reception (of the wifi-only model) and the reported DHCP lease renewal issue; making it difficult to conclusively point to a single solution when someone reports a 'wifi issue'.

Update: Interesting article here which seems to back this up:

iPad Wi-Fi complaints echo those of Nexus One, iPod Touch

I'd bet you're more likely to have trouble-free operation if your wireless router uses a Broadcom based chipset (which a lot of them do!)
Click to expand...

The article is two months old and its hypothesis doesn't account for the fact that the vast majority of iPad users as well as iPod Touch users aren't having WiFi problems. The iPad, and the latest iPhone and iPod Touch all use the Broadcom BCM4329 chip which is actually used in quite a few devices now.
 
jimHdk said:
The article is two months old and its hypothesis...
Click to expand...

Two months isn't particularly old imho; I don't think they conclusively state the Broadcom chip used in the iPad is to blame but the annecdotal evidence does suggest it is a factor - I think the most anyone can take home from all of this is that if you're having WiFi problems and you've tried all the various configuration-type tweaks with no luck, try a different router, preferably one that uses Broadcom based chipset. In my particular situation, swapping router sorted the problem out (brand new Ralink-based router + iPad had issues, old Broadcom-based router + iPad worked fine).

jimHdk said:
...doesn't account for the fact that the vast majority of iPad users as well as iPod Touch users aren't having WiFi problems. The iPad, and the latest iPhone and iPod Touch all use the Broadcom BCM4329 chip which is actually used in quite a few devices now.
Click to expand...

It would if the minority of users with problems are mainly those that don't have Broadcom based routers; as you point out, that particular chip is used in quite a few devices and more generally as of 2006 there were a 100 million of the little buggers out there! Impressive when you consider the total market for WiFi chipsets in 2005 was around 140 million unit shipments and Broadcom entered the space in 2002 :D I'd wager compatibility between Broadcom WiFi chipsets is pretty good.
 
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