NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
Forum Discussion
Possible Fix for iPhone Dropping WiFi
I have an RBE973S system. think I have identified the reason my iPhone keeps dropping WiFi, and I wanted to share so others can see if it solves their issues. On your iPhone, go to Settings>Cellula...
I just upgraded from the iPhone 15 Pro Max to the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
So far, all the WiFi drop and roaming issues have completely disappeared. My connection seems very stable, even in the old areas that I always dropped WiFi with my old phone. I’ll be sure to report back if that changes.
If everything continue to go smoothly over the next couple days, I’ll be sure to upgrade my wife’s phone as well.
This could come down to one of at least a couple things…
1) The iPhone 16 Pro Max has WiFi 7. Perhaps this is causing it to work properly with the Orbi.
2) Perhaps the iPhone 15 Pro Max has an issue with its WiFi chip that is causing this problem.
I wonder if the problem is in Apple’s hands rather than Netgear? Thoughts?
So far, all the WiFi drop and roaming issues have completely disappeared. My connection seems very stable, even in the old areas that I always dropped WiFi with my old phone. I’ll be sure to report back if that changes.
If everything continue to go smoothly over the next couple days, I’ll be sure to upgrade my wife’s phone as well.
This could come down to one of at least a couple things…
1) The iPhone 16 Pro Max has WiFi 7. Perhaps this is causing it to work properly with the Orbi.
2) Perhaps the iPhone 15 Pro Max has an issue with its WiFi chip that is causing this problem.
I wonder if the problem is in Apple’s hands rather than Netgear? Thoughts?
- @mapotter , Wow! I read several month’s ago that Apple was not expected to offer WiFi 7 capability with the iPhone 16 release as the standard was certified so late in the latest iPhone’s development time-frame. Obviously, that was incorrect!
Your “stability” update is of much interest to me and numerous other members of this Community as we’ve been dealing with all the WiFi/5G flips, etc using our iPhone 15 Pro Max and older units. Several of us even turned off iPhone 15 PM “WiFi 6E” capability months ago which lessened (but didn’t eliminate) the frequency of drops, so I’ve missed the 6Ghz WiFi connection that would let me get somewhat faster up/down-load speeds with my 5Gb fiber ISP connection.
When you update us again, does the iPhone 16 Pro Max allow turning off WiFi 7 (I.e. 6Ghz Band) like the iPhone 15 Pro Max allowed with its WiFi 6E? This capability seemed to allow me to easier on-board some brands of IoT devices (even when using the RBE971 IoT SSID).
Also, I don’t know if this is an Orbi App “display” or “capability” issue (I.e. if the NG Mesh system is actually designed to do this) but I have noticed numerous IoT devices located in the same room or adjoining room of the 971 Router always appear to connect to one of the RBE970 Remote IoT SSID’s located further away from the IoT devices which results in a weaker connection signal strength. I don’t know if you have 2.4Ghz IoT devices, but it will be interesting to see if the new iPhone 16 will onboard IoT’s to the closest mesh location, not just Remote locations.
Similarly (remember, I’ve had WiFi 6E disabled on my iPhone 15 Pro Max for multiple months now), I recall not seeing a 6 GHz connection for my iPhone 15 PM (WiFi 6E capable) when the Orbi Device Manager showed my iPhone connected to an Orbi Remote (it was always a 5Ghz connection??). I have come to realize (unless Apple’s WiFi 7 corrects this issue as well), the 6Ghz WiFi band “useful” distance drops off very quickly if you pass thru only 1 wall/ceiling/floor. This might explain why I remember only seeing 5Ghz WiFi connections (if the 6Ghz connection dropped back to 5Ghz) when my iPhone 15 PM was connected to a Remote Mesh node.
Any speeds faster than dial-up make the speed difference between 6Ghz (normally symmetrical 1200-1300 Mbps for me) vs 5Ghz (normally symmetrical 800-1000 Mbps) mostly unnoticeable,
I look forward to your future update, well, maybe not as I’d already decided NOT to upgrade iPhone’s this year!! Not as lucky as mapotter99 here. Just got my iPhone 16 Pro Max set up, and to answer Roc1 it only has the same WiFi 6E setting. But when connected close to a satellite, it shows as connection '5GHz+6GHz' on the router attached devices list and the satellite status page.
I was just out at lunch, and returned back. I have been sitting at my desk for about 3-4 minutes, about 2 feet from the 970 sat, and it's on 5G cellular! I even bring up the WiFi page and it does not auto connect. I t was on the network before I left. I tapped to connect. I'll see if it happens again...but it looks like the same issue happens for me with the 16s.
I just changed to a manual IPv4 IP address, and manual DNS. Phone flipped to 5G, and even turning WiFi off/on it stayed on 5G. The WiFi setting says it's connected to WiFi, but the top right corner says '5G', and the speed test app confirms it is on 5G/using my AT&T cellular.
I have to say this iPhone 16 acts worse with 6E=Autonatic than the 15 does!
I had to forget the network and re-add it to get it to connect again!
- donawalt , thanks for the update, you’ve saved me IPhone 16 money!!
I’ve followed your lead on the RBE971 issues this past year in configuring my IPhone 15 Pro Max, and 971 settings. The question I asked in my post about the iPhone 16 Pro Max, were mostly what I picked up from you! I thought we were on our way to a resolution! Maybe not.
