Wi-Fi issues on latest apple devices - unable to connect Wi-Fi under channel 155 with 80MHz bandwidth

Jie Han · May 7, 2022

Hi everyone,

I’ve found that when I let my router auto select the channel and channel width, as apple suggests in this article https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202068, all my apple devices can show my Wi-Fi but cannot connect to it. The problems occurred at my iPhone 13 pro, iPad mini6, and iPad Pro 12.9 2021 while my android device (xiaomi 10) works fine.

After some digging I found that my router auto selects the channel 155 with the bandwidth of 80MHz. And it is no longer existing when I manually switched it to channel 48 or reduce the bandwidth to 40MHz.

Though The problem is “solved”, I wonder if someone can find out why this will happen? And if anyone has experienced the same issue as well.

p.s. all my devices are bought and used in UK.

Falcon1986 · May 7, 2022

45 minutes ago, Jie Han said:

...I found that my router auto selects the channel 155 with the bandwidth of 80MHz.

Which router? Make and model, please.

46 minutes ago, Jie Han said:

The problems occurred at my iPhone 13 pro, iPad mini6, and iPad Pro 12.9 2021 while my android device (xiaomi 10) works fine.

It's likely a peculiarity with the wireless chipsets being used on your iOS devices.

Another thing to note is that as channel widths become wider to accommodate faster bandwidth, some of the signal range is lost due to power output being focused elsewhere. If your iOS devices are at the periphery of a poor quality signal, they're not going to connect. The Android might have a superior chipset that gets better reception.

Alex Atkin UK · May 7, 2022

For the record, Apple are wrong IMO, I'd NEVER recommend using Auto as a lot of routers do not follow channel conventions and will overlap other used channels for no good reason.

As for why this didn't work, Channel 155 is Band C and its only in the last few years this was legal to use in the UK without a license. Many manufacturers therefore never bothered to get their devices certified for using these channels so they just won't see them.

My Access Point wont even let me use Band C at all as Zyxel refuse to get re-certified for it on the basis it can cause the issue you experienced, even though I was going to use it specifically for devices that DO support it.