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Forum Discussion
Device flipping to celllular/disconnecting when on WiFi? Read this for possible solution!
Technical Analysis and Repeatable Evidence of DHCP/Routing Bug in Netgear Orbi 971 (Router Mode)
Summary of Issue
In environments using the Orbi 971 system in router mode, certain iOS/iPadOS ...
MikeM4937 thanks for the reply. I don't have an IoT or Guest network set up, so no risk of an issue there.
One thing you said, "Apple assumption is 6GHz and 5GHz are operating on different SSIDs", is not correct - Apple’s current “Recommended settings for Wi-Fi routers and access points” support article (updated May 1 , 2025) says to “Make sure that all routers on your network use the same name for every band they support. If you give your 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, or 6 GHz bands different names, devices might not connect reliably to your network, to all routers on your network, or to all available bands of your routers. If your router is providing a Wi-Fi 6E network that isn't using the same name for all bands, Apple devices that support Wi-Fi 6E will identify the network as having limited compatibility." Check the article out here:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/102766
This makes sense too, as the router can't perform band steering or Multi-Link Operation (MLO) if the SSIDs are all different (which I don't believe Orbis support anyway, likely for these reasons).
You did say at the end, that your priority devices are set up with a static DCHP leases on the RBE971 - that's exactly what I said to do in my OP. Are you able to set static IP/DNS for IPv6 on Android devices? I can't on Apple - which is why IPv6 needs to be disabled. The issue I see is that DHCP messages need to be stopped, so that the router either dropping or delayed in response doesn't cause a flip to cellular for the device's internet access. It's possible your Android devices have different timings, or that they are not as aggressive as Apple devices in DHCP traffic, health checks, etc. I have seen late-model Apple devices with 30-50 DHCP messages an hour in the log! Have you looked at your router log to see how much DHCP traffic you have from your priority devices?
And you are right, a lot of these issues only affect WiFi 6 and 6E devices - older ones have no issues (this includes issues with IPv6 only with 6/6E devices imho). I would turn off 6/6E support as well, as 5GHz is plenty fast, but Apple devices have the annoying habit of flipping the setting back on without you knowing it!
I understood in your OP that you set your static IPv4 on the iPhone/iPad’s device settings. What I am doing is still using DHCP assigned IPs. I am using the “Address Reservation” setting on the “LAN Setup” page of the Netgear router. In my logs the only excessive DHCP requesting clients are 2x La Crosse wifi clocks. These go through every 20 to 30 seconds requesting an IP or trying to renew. Which per La Crosse is by design and normal for their clocks.
Via http://192.168.1.1/debug.htm if you enable “Enable LAN/WAN Packet Capture” and let it run for a few hours. You can review the packet captures contained within zip. To see if the RBE971 is doing the proper replies/ack. When I get time I actually plan to run a capture and review the packet captures on my home network to see. If the RBE’s DHCP process is working on my network.
