Dear all, an irritating issue has just become a bit clearer for us, though I am unsure if it’s a one-off.
We seem to have a situation where definitely one (more to be tested) student’s iPhone seems to have severely degraded performance on 2.4GHz.
We have a student in halls who has being using her iPhone since October with no issues but since returning from Christmas break, she has been unable to get any kind of signal in her room and even when close to the AP in clear air, still gets 10-15db poorer
signal than other iPhones in the same location and never better than -70db.
While investigating, we tried switching the AP (single radio, oh do I regret saving money on the halls APs!) from 2.4GHz over to 5GHz and instantly she gets a great signal. I tested it with another AP, on another controller and later code release just to be
sure, but we have not upgraded or changed the configs over the period the problem appeared. Anyway, it exhibited the same behaviour.
So I am thinking that something has happened to her iPhone over the break which has meant it is “deliberately” degrading the 2.4GHz radio. I have a vague recollection of a rumour that Apple prefer 5GHz because although it propagates less (or attenuates more),
if you are in signal then you are likely to get a better throughput, more likely to switch to a nearer AP and so on, making their devices appear faster, but at the expense of wider coverage.
So I am wondering whether anyone else has seen this? We have another couple of tickets that may well be the same thing so will shortly be testing those in the same way. Google reveals little because there are so many threads about poor WiFi discussing more
basic issues, but I wondered if the hive mind has any ideas?
Thanks in advance
David Rickard
Network Services Manager
University of Brighton
si officium faciens valet, male faciens valet
