A friend of mine's new iPad 2 arrived at his house today. He unpacked
it, tried to connect to his wifi and rang me. Many hours ago.

I've logged in remotely to his machine and checked the router settings
all seem OK. It's a Netgear router on Virgin cable with wpa wireless
security set.

Another friend of his called round to see him with her iPhone and iPad1.
The iPhone seemed to connect immediately, the iPad1 didn't.

After a long struggle without changing anything, the 2 iPads appeared
with IP addresses on his router and sort of worked, but had difficulty
connecting to many things in a meaningful way.

Google finds many, many complaints about iPad 2's and wifi. I've read
through their support docs on the net, but they are all pretty basic.
For a long time the iPad saw the router by name (and didn't see any
other routers), but wouldn't accept the correct password. This seems to
be a common complaint. We tried doing it automatically and setting up
WPA manually as the security protocol.

I'm going to have to go over there taking inSSIDer in a few days to
check that his router isn't on the same wifi channel as a neighbour
etc., but wondered if anyone here had any insight. The ipad says it
supports a,b,g and n networking, whereas his router is only b & g but
some of the complaints suggest switching to g only.

He has got over the mains networking as well, which he needs for various
systems in his big thick-walled old house. Is this likely to interfere
with his wifi?

He will visit the nearest Apple store tomorrow. I've advised him to be
wary of being sold anything more.

So far, from a distance, I'm unimpressed. Can anyone throw any light
into my darkness.
--
Bill

On 21/06/2011 11:54 PM, Bill wrote:
A friend of mine's new iPad 2 arrived at his house today. He unpacked
it, tried to connect to his wifi and rang me. Many hours ago.

I've logged in remotely to his machine and checked the router settings
all seem OK. It's a Netgear router on Virgin cable with wpa wireless
security set.

Another friend of his called round to see him with her iPhone and iPad1.
The iPhone seemed to connect immediately, the iPad1 didn't.

After a long struggle without changing anything, the 2 iPads appeared
with IP addresses on his router and sort of worked, but had difficulty
connecting to many things in a meaningful way.

Google finds many, many complaints about iPad 2's and wifi. I've read
through their support docs on the net, but they are all pretty basic.
For a long time the iPad saw the router by name (and didn't see any
other routers), but wouldn't accept the correct password. This seems to
be a common complaint. We tried doing it automatically and setting up
WPA manually as the security protocol.

I'm going to have to go over there taking inSSIDer in a few days to
check that his router isn't on the same wifi channel as a neighbour
etc., but wondered if anyone here had any insight. The ipad says it
supports a,b,g and n networking, whereas his router is only b & g but
some of the complaints suggest switching to g only.

He has got over the mains networking as well, which he needs for various
systems in his big thick-walled old house. Is this likely to interfere
with his wifi?

He will visit the nearest Apple store tomorrow. I've advised him to be
wary of being sold anything more.

So far, from a distance, I'm unimpressed. Can anyone throw any light
into my darkness.

The IPAD will not be the problem.

How old is the router? Update the firmware to the latest available.
there's a high probability this will sort everything.

If the router is so old that the latest firmware is still 5 years old it
may still be unreliable so NEXT try the ipad on somebody elses newer
router, just to satisfy yourself it works.......then buy a new router.

The alternative is to keep the router and pick up a new Wireless Access
Point....benefit being (so long as you can get a wired connection back
to the router) you can optimally locate it in the house AND get wireless
n, long range etc. I like the Draytek AP-700
http://www.draytek.co.uk/products/ap700.html and use one of these
instead of my 7 year old Linksys router for exactly the reasons you are
experiencing.

On Wed, 22 Jun 2011 07:50:04 +0100, Vortex10 wrote:

The IPAD will not be the problem.

Wouldn't like to bet on it, Apple don't have a particulary good track
record with these i thingies. Also bear in mind that you are daring
to use this i thingy with other makers kit, not Apples.

Forums full of compliants that iPad2 doesn't work reliably with a
variety of access points/routers that do work with other kit without
trouble points the finger rather strongly at the problem being with
the iPad.

--
Cheers
Dave.

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Wed, 22 Jun 2011 07:50:04 +0100, Vortex10 wrote:

The IPAD will not be the problem.

Wouldn't like to bet on it, Apple don't have a particulary good track
record with these i thingies. Also bear in mind that you are daring
to use this i thingy with other makers kit, not Apples.


Apple do not understand RF.

Tey site their aerials in stupid places.

Forums full of compliants that iPad2 doesn't work reliably with a
variety of access points/routers that do work with other kit without
trouble points the finger rather strongly at the problem being with
the iPad.

Precisement, mon cher.

"Bill" wrote in message
...
A friend of mine's new iPad 2 arrived at his house today. He unpacked it,
tried to connect to his wifi and rang me. Many hours ago.

I've logged in remotely to his machine and checked the router settings all
seem OK. It's a Netgear router on Virgin cable with wpa wireless security
set.

Another friend of his called round to see him with her iPhone and iPad1.
The iPhone seemed to connect immediately, the iPad1 didn't.

snip

One thing that used to cause me problems (but recent kit seems to sort
automatically).

As well as the encryption method there is the authentication method.

IIRC you can chose "shared key" or "open".
If the router and client do not match, you can have the correct password and
they just won't work together.

HTH

Dave R
--
No plan survives contact with the enemy.
[Not even bunny]

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")

On Wed, 22 Jun 2011 09:29:37 +0100, David WE Roberts wrote:

One thing that used to cause me problems (but recent kit seems to sort
automatically).

As well as the encryption method there is the authentication method.

IIRC you can chose "shared key" or "open". If the router and client do
not match, you can have the correct password and they just won't work
together.

Oh yes, there are an awful lot of variations that are generally
hidden from the user that kit may try and sort out automagically.
When it doesn't you don't get told what the problem is with a
sensible error message it just fails to work. Trying to find the
relevant settings to then tweak can be a right-mare. Web interfaces
on consumer kit rarely have them and the telnet interface (if it has
one) will only have rudimentary documentation that is for two
versions earlier...

--
Cheers
Dave.

In message , John
Rumm writes
On 21/06/2011 23:54, Bill wrote:
A friend of mine's new iPad 2 arrived at his house today. He unpacked
it, tried to connect to his wifi and rang me. Many hours ago.

[snip]

So far, from a distance, I'm unimpressed. Can anyone throw any light
into my darkness.

You are not alone. iStuff in general seems to have difficulty with
wireless kit that other manufacturers kit has no difficulty
interoperating with[1]. I had to swap out a WAP at an office the other
day because none of the iPhones would connect to it. The laptops etc
however were fine.

[1] This may not be a "fault" of the Apple kit - they may be following
the letter of the law (i.e. the protocol standards), but they certainly
seem less flexible.

Turning off things you don't need can help. So if the AP supports b/g &
n, but you are only using g, then disable the others. Same for speed
boost technologies, jumbo frames and other tweaks.

You often find it will work unencrypted but not with WPA2. One option
if the kit supports it, is to disable access to the LAN from the wifi,
and restrict the bandwidth available to it. Means anyone in range can
connect, but they can't see you network, or use much bandwidth.

Thanks for this and all the other replies so far.

From his latest email....
"This morning I went to the Apple Shop at 10.30 am and confronted a
spotty faced youth.
I told him of my problems. He said he'd never heard of any trouble like
that. What should I do I asked him. I don't know he said.
That's no good to me I said. You could see someone upstairs in the
Genius Bar he said. It was then I realised that I was in the
Cretin Bar."

He didn't get much further in the genius bar, but they demonstrated that
it worked perfectly there.

We now seem to have established that connection improves (although he
thinks it's still not right) when he turns off his mains network device.
I'm wondering now whether these iPads have any RF screening round the
main pcb or whether the wifi section has a really wideband front end?
I've thought of taking some kitchen foil over when I go, but that might
make the touchscreen a bit hard to read.

He can't really afford to cable his house to be able to remove the mains
networking, so I'll try to narrow down his wifi as tightly as possible.
I can take another router over to use as a separate wireless access
point.

--
Bill

On Jun 22, 11:32*am, John Rumm wrote:
On 21/06/2011 23:54, Bill wrote:

A friend of mine's new iPad 2 arrived at his house today. He unpacked
it, tried to connect to his wifi and rang me. Many hours ago.

[snip]

So far, from a distance, I'm unimpressed. Can anyone throw any light
into my darkness.

You are not alone. iStuff in general seems to have difficulty with
wireless kit that other manufacturers kit has no difficulty
interoperating with[1]. I had to swap out a WAP at an office the other
day because none of the iPhones would connect to it. The laptops etc
however were fine.

I *need* a WAP because my iPod Touch will not connect to the router in
some rooms where the laptop works fine.

MBQ

On Wed, 22 Jun 2011 14:44:16 +0100, Bill wrote:

He didn't get much further in the genius bar, but they demonstrated that
it worked perfectly there.

Well of course it would, they will have an Apple "Airport" AP of some
sort not the AP that the customer has. I'd be tempted to take both
into the shop and say "make 'em work" but Sods Law being Sods Law
they will no doubt work without a hitch if you did that. Just to
eliminate local conditions could the i thingy and AP point be tried
elsewhere before presenting to the i shop?

The mains network shouldn't be affecting the WiFi. The WiFi is on
2.4GHz, pretty sure the mains network things are less than 1MHz.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 21/06/2011 23:54, Bill wrote:
A friend of mine's new iPad 2 arrived at his house today. He unpacked
it, tried to connect to his wifi and rang me. Many hours ago.

I've logged in remotely to his machine and checked the router settings
all seem OK. It's a Netgear router on Virgin cable with wpa wireless
security set.

Another friend of his called round to see him with her iPhone and iPad1.
The iPhone seemed to connect immediately, the iPad1 didn't.

After a long struggle without changing anything, the 2 iPads appeared
with IP addresses on his router and sort of worked, but had difficulty
connecting to many things in a meaningful way.

Google finds many, many complaints about iPad 2's and wifi. I've read
through their support docs on the net, but they are all pretty basic.
For a long time the iPad saw the router by name (and didn't see any
other routers), but wouldn't accept the correct password. This seems to
be a common complaint. We tried doing it automatically and setting up
WPA manually as the security protocol.

I'm going to have to go over there taking inSSIDer in a few days to
check that his router isn't on the same wifi channel as a neighbour
etc., but wondered if anyone here had any insight. The ipad says it
supports a,b,g and n networking, whereas his router is only b & g but
some of the complaints suggest switching to g only.

He has got over the mains networking as well, which he needs for various
systems in his big thick-walled old house. Is this likely to interfere
with his wifi?

He will visit the nearest Apple store tomorrow. I've advised him to be
wary of being sold anything more.

So far, from a distance, I'm unimpressed. Can anyone throw any light
into my darkness.

No help to offer, but here at Lowe Towers, I have 3 cisco access points
running WPA2-Enterprise ( with RADIUS servers and certificates ) and the
iPAD1 and iPod touches / iPhones all just figure it out and request
credentials and connect.

Very impressed at how it figured out all the correct settings that
usually requires manual intervention in Windows for example.

No idea why it won't connect to the Netgear.

--
Ron

Bill wrote:

So far, from a distance, I'm unimpressed. Can anyone throw any light
into my darkness.

I have experience of a MacBook that suddenly stopped talking to a router
(Netgear IIRC) that it was regularly used with. Couldn't make it talk
for love nor money.

IMO it's Apple at fault but the router will always receive the blame
being cheaper and easier to replace: "Oh look, it works with the new
router; the old one must have been faulty."

To be fair tho, M$ managed a similar own goal with Vista (& probably 7)
which connects to, but fails to see the Internet through, a variety of
modem/routers.

--
Scott

Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?

On 22/06/2011 17:21, Ron Lowe wrote:

Very impressed at how it figured out all the correct settings that
usually requires manual intervention in Windows for example.

I've used a windows laptop in quite a few places, and in all but one of
them what I've had to do is switch it on, choose the right network, and
enter a password. I don't think it can be any simpler than that.

(in the other place, he's got DHCP turned off, so I do need to do a
manual setup there - but the same would be true for any device).

In article , Ron Lowe writes

No help to offer, but here at Lowe Towers, I have 3 cisco access points
running WPA2-Enterprise ( with RADIUS servers and certificates ) and the
iPAD1 and iPod touches / iPhones all just figure it out and request
credentials and connect.

Are the access points covering different areas? Do the various toys
connect to the strongest signal or do they have a favourite that they
try to connect to irrespective of signal strength?

I have a wireless router and separate access point covering overlapping
areas and although I'm not using 'i' products (just yet) I have had
bother with:

1. A Blackberry which has a priority list for wifi connections trying to
connect to the favourite even if it is nearly out of range and the
second favourite is much closer.

2. A laptop preferring to connect to the last connected node rather than
the strongest which makes it a pain when moving between home to home
office.

Also, bizarrely, my Orange San Francisco (notorious for wifi fussiness)
refuses to work with the zoom wireless router but is perfectly happy to
connect (and obtain addresses from the zoom router) when connecting via
a separate access point.

I'd be interested to hear how the iToys behave in your setup.
--
fred
FIVE TV's superbright logo - not the DOG's, it's ********

On 22/06/2011 19:01, fred wrote:
In article , Ron Lowe writes

No help to offer, but here at Lowe Towers, I have 3 cisco access points
running WPA2-Enterprise ( with RADIUS servers and certificates ) and the
iPAD1 and iPod touches / iPhones all just figure it out and request
credentials and connect.

Are the access points covering different areas? Do the various toys
connect to the strongest signal or do they have a favourite that they
try to connect to irrespective of signal strength?

I have a wireless router and separate access point covering overlapping
areas and although I'm not using 'i' products (just yet) I have had
bother with:

1. A Blackberry which has a priority list for wifi connections trying to
connect to the favourite even if it is nearly out of range and the
second favourite is much closer.

2. A laptop preferring to connect to the last connected node rather than
the strongest which makes it a pain when moving between home to home
office.

Also, bizarrely, my Orange San Francisco (notorious for wifi fussiness)
refuses to work with the zoom wireless router but is perfectly happy to
connect (and obtain addresses from the zoom router) when connecting via
a separate access point.

I'd be interested to hear how the iToys behave in your setup.

All the cisco WAPS are sending the same group of SSIDs. ( There's more
than 1 wireless network: there's a 'guest' one for Internet access only )

The iPrides seem to roam betweeen them seamlessly, but it's hard to say
without logging into the access points and seeing what clients are
currently connected.

--
Ron

In article , Ron Lowe writes

All the cisco WAPS are sending the same group of SSIDs. ( There's more
than 1 wireless network: there's a 'guest' one for Internet access only )

More research required my end I think into group SSIDs, I'll flag that
on the to-do list.

The iPrides seem to roam betweeen them seamlessly, but it's hard to say
without logging into the access points and seeing what clients are
currently connected.

Good to know, at least one iSomething is scheduled to be added here
soon.

Thanks for the info.
--
fred
FIVE TV's superbright logo - not the DOG's, it's ********

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Wed, 22 Jun 2011 14:44:16 +0100, Bill wrote:

He didn't get much further in the genius bar, but they demonstrated that
it worked perfectly there.

Well of course it would, they will have an Apple "Airport" AP of some
sort not the AP that the customer has. I'd be tempted to take both
into the shop and say "make 'em work" but Sods Law being Sods Law
they will no doubt work without a hitch if you did that. Just to
eliminate local conditions could the i thingy and AP point be tried
elsewhere before presenting to the i shop?

The mains network shouldn't be affecting the WiFi. The WiFi is on
2.4GHz, pretty sure the mains network things are less than 1MHz.

That would be a neat trick, given the published data rates.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

"fred" wrote in message news
In article , Ron Lowe writes

No help to offer, but here at Lowe Towers, I have 3 cisco access points
running WPA2-Enterprise ( with RADIUS servers and certificates ) and the
iPAD1 and iPod touches / iPhones all just figure it out and request
credentials and connect.

Are the access points covering different areas? Do the various toys
connect to the strongest signal or do they have a favourite that they try
to connect to irrespective of signal strength?

I have a wireless router and separate access point covering overlapping
areas and although I'm not using 'i' products (just yet) I have had bother
with:

1. A Blackberry which has a priority list for wifi connections trying to
connect to the favourite even if it is nearly out of range and the second
favourite is much closer.

2. A laptop preferring to connect to the last connected node rather than
the strongest which makes it a pain when moving between home to home
office.

Win7 is sensible enough to decide that AP with the same network ID are the
same network and use the best signal.
Of course if they have different IDs it treats them as different networks
and tries to connect to the last used one.

In article ,
John Williamson wrote:
Dave Liquorice wrote:

The mains network shouldn't be affecting the WiFi. The WiFi is on
2.4GHz, pretty sure the mains network things are less than 1MHz.

That would be a neat trick, given the published data rates.

Old technology powerline networks such as are used for remote meter
reading are indeed around 100 kHz, give or take a few tens, but domestic
powerline stuff has to be much higher rate and can cause FM interference.
High bandwidth "video ready" powerline interferes in the WLAN 2.4GHz
range, as has recently been published by OFCOM (I'm trying to find a link
to the FoI stuff that doesn't go via The Register, who I am boycotting).

Nick
--
Serendipity: http://www.leverton.org/blosxom (last update 29th March 2010)
"The Internet, a sort of ersatz counterfeit of real life"
-- Janet Street-Porter, BBC2, 19th March 1996

In article , Ron Lowe wrote:
On 21/06/2011 23:54, Bill wrote:

No help to offer, but here at Lowe Towers, I have 3 cisco access points
running WPA2-Enterprise ( with RADIUS servers and certificates ) and the
iPAD1 and iPod touches / iPhones all just figure it out and request
credentials and connect.

Very impressed at how it figured out all the correct settings that
usually requires manual intervention in Windows for example.


Can be a bit less slick when the user changes their password though


No idea why it won't connect to the Netgear.

I had a linksys that appeared reluctant to work with a couple of iMacs
(running leopard IIRC). After sniffing the traffic it turned out to be
something wierd with timing and DHCP. Can't remember the details - the
machines would connect to the router fine, but then fail to get an ip
and would autoassign itself an address after 30 seconds or so.

Took it back to PCworld (it was a distress purchase on a sunday), got my
money back and switched to a netgear - no more problems.

Darren

On Wed, 22 Jun 2011 09:16:42 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Wed, 22 Jun 2011 07:50:04 +0100, Vortex10 wrote:

The IPAD will not be the problem.
Wouldn't like to bet on it, Apple don't have a particulary good track
record with these i thingies. Also bear in mind that you are daring
to use this i thingy with other makers kit, not Apples.


Apple do not understand RF.

Tey site their aerials in stupid places.

Got iPAD, MacBook, iMac plus several non-Apple laptops and several varied
guest devices over the years - all have worked excellently together. Using
an Apple Airport Extreme wireless router. Unlike most other such kit, I
get told of firmware updates which always apply with no fuss. It was one
of the easiest (perhaps absolutely the easiest) router I have ever
configured.

For devices with stupidly placed aerials they work very well indeed.

And rumour has it that in future they will call if WiFi instead of
Airport. How's that for following standards? :-)

Rod

On Wed, 22 Jun 2011 20:04:12 +0000 (UTC), Nick Leverton wrote:

The mains network shouldn't be affecting the WiFi. The WiFi is on
2.4GHz, pretty sure the mains network things are less than 1MHz.

Couldn't be arsed to google when I wrote that and that particular
memory cell seems have suffered a failure.

"Which frequency range is HomePlug AV using? Does HomePlug have any
plans to use higher frequencies (e.g. above 30 MHz) and if not, why?

HomePlug AV uses frequencies in the range of two to 28 MHz. The IEEE
1901 standard extends this range optionally to 50 Mhz. HomePlug AV2
will utilize additional frequencies above 30 MHz to increase
throughput."

http://www.homeplug.org/about/faqs/

That would be a neat trick, given the published data rates.

If you are thinking that to carry 100MBps of data you need a 100MHz
carrier think again. Each transition can carry more than one bit of
information and these are spread spectrum transmissions as well.
Something approaching 1000 individual carriers in the case of
Homeplug.

High bandwidth "video ready" powerline interferes in the WLAN 2.4GHz
range, as has recently been published by OFCOM (I'm trying to find a
link to the FoI stuff that doesn't go via The Register, who I am
boycotting).

Is this wide area powerline stuff or the domestic house and not much
further powerline comms?

--
Cheers
Dave.

In article o.uk,
Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Wed, 22 Jun 2011 20:04:12 +0000 (UTC), Nick Leverton wrote:

High bandwidth "video ready" powerline interferes in the WLAN 2.4GHz
range, as has recently been published by OFCOM (I'm trying to find a
link to the FoI stuff that doesn't go via The Register, who I am
boycotting).

Is this wide area powerline stuff or the domestic house and not much
further powerline comms?

The report I remember was domestic house PLC and only looked at in-house
interference in a small number of trial properties (two, IIRC).

I think I misquoted it somewhat though. It was investigating FM
interference on the domestic radio bands, rather than 2.4GHz WLAN,
but the limited trials they did found that house powerline networking
could and did interfere, in one case seriously, with radio reception.
The WLAN bit was, I think, in either an appendix or a commentary, but
wasn't tested at that time (a couple of years ago).

Nick
--
Serendipity: http://www.leverton.org/blosxom (last update 29th March 2010)
"The Internet, a sort of ersatz counterfeit of real life"
-- Janet Street-Porter, BBC2, 19th March 1996

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Wed, 22 Jun 2011 20:04:12 +0000 (UTC), Nick Leverton wrote:

The mains network shouldn't be affecting the WiFi. The WiFi is on
2.4GHz, pretty sure the mains network things are less than 1MHz.

Couldn't be arsed to google when I wrote that and that particular
memory cell seems have suffered a failure.

"Which frequency range is HomePlug AV using? Does HomePlug have any
plans to use higher frequencies (e.g. above 30 MHz) and if not, why?

HomePlug AV uses frequencies in the range of two to 28 MHz. The IEEE
1901 standard extends this range optionally to 50 Mhz. HomePlug AV2
will utilize additional frequencies above 30 MHz to increase
throughput."

http://www.homeplug.org/about/faqs/

That would be a neat trick, given the published data rates.

If you are thinking that to carry 100MBps of data you need a 100MHz
carrier think again. Each transition can carry more than one bit of
information and these are spread spectrum transmissions as well.
Something approaching 1000 individual carriers in the case of
Homeplug.

You possibly missed the bit where I said that not using frequencies
above *1MHz* would be a neat trick, and the published spec in your link
goes to 28 times that, with an option to go to 50MHz. Each carrier may
have a bandwidth below 1MHz, but the aggregate contains frequencies up
to 28 or 50 MHz.

Multiple bits per transition is not a new trick, it's been used since
the days of 56K modems, if not before.

Reads specification It seems that the homeplugs are carrying 200MBps
of data. They say they use between 2 and 28MHz. If they're using spread
spectrum, then the bandwidth of each carrier can be reduced, but the
overall bandwidth stays the same, surely?

I'm glad that I don't use LW, MW or SW AM radio nowadays. Homeplugs have
been reported as wiping out reception of weak stations for quite a
distance from the installation. Twisted pair ethernet doesn't,
especially the shielded stuff.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

In message , D.M.Chapman
writes
In article , Ron Lowe wrote:
On 21/06/2011 23:54, Bill wrote:

No help to offer, but here at Lowe Towers, I have 3 cisco access points
running WPA2-Enterprise ( with RADIUS servers and certificates ) and the
iPAD1 and iPod touches / iPhones all just figure it out and request
credentials and connect.

Very impressed at how it figured out all the correct settings that
usually requires manual intervention in Windows for example.


Can be a bit less slick when the user changes their password though


No idea why it won't connect to the Netgear.

I had a linksys that appeared reluctant to work with a couple of iMacs
(running leopard IIRC). After sniffing the traffic it turned out to be
something wierd with timing and DHCP. Can't remember the details - the
machines would connect to the router fine, but then fail to get an ip
and would autoassign itself an address after 30 seconds or so.

Took it back to PCworld (it was a distress purchase on a sunday), got my
money back and switched to a netgear - no more problems.

Well, here's where we are....

Spent several hours there. His Virgin supplied Netgear router looked
fine in most settings toa non-expert like me, Running inSSIDer on my
laptop nearby showed that he was on a clean wifi channel, with 4 other
routers nearby on a very well separated channel.
However, the signal strength appeared to randomly drop to zero.

The later firmware version from Netgear's site was not recognised and
wouldn't install. After trying many variations of WPA, tried another
router piggy backed as an access point and that seemed to give a solid
signal.

We then switched off the Homeplug networking, and the iPad connected
when the router showed on inSSIDER, not when it didn't.

At this stage rang Virgin support, who tried remote control of the
router and agreed it was faulty. They will replace it.

After this tried taking the Netgear back to basics ie no security and
with the Homeplug out got a solid iPad signal and set up his email,
Skype etc.

The Homeplug is not close to the router, but there is obviously some
sort of interaction. Looking at the inSSIDer time graph showed a
consistent wifi signal with the Homeplug switched off, and a graph like
a very slow sawtooth with it on.

He has a huge assembly of loose mains boards, some of which say they
have some sort of filtering, so I'm wondering if trying to get the new
router when it comes onto some sort of filtered mains might be a good
idea.

If it is, what sort of filter should he be looking for?
--
Bill

In message , Bill
writes
In message , John
Rumm writes
On 21/06/2011 23:54, Bill wrote:
A friend of mine's new iPad 2 arrived at his house today. He unpacked
it, tried to connect to his wifi and rang me. Many hours ago.

[snip]

So far, from a distance, I'm unimpressed. Can anyone throw any light
into my darkness.

You are not alone. iStuff in general seems to have difficulty with
wireless kit that other manufacturers kit has no difficulty
interoperating with[1]. I had to swap out a WAP at an office the other
day because none of the iPhones would connect to it. The laptops etc
however were fine.

[1] This may not be a "fault" of the Apple kit - they may be following
the letter of the law (i.e. the protocol standards), but they
certainly seem less flexible.

Turning off things you don't need can help. So if the AP supports b/g
& n, but you are only using g, then disable the others. Same for speed
boost technologies, jumbo frames and other tweaks.

You often find it will work unencrypted but not with WPA2. One option
if the kit supports it, is to disable access to the LAN from the wifi,
and restrict the bandwidth available to it. Means anyone in range can
connect, but they can't see you network, or use much bandwidth.

Thanks for this and all the other replies so far.

From his latest email....
"This morning I went to the Apple Shop at 10.30 am and confronted a
spotty faced youth.
I told him of my problems. He said he'd never heard of any trouble like
that. What should I do I asked him. I don't know he said.
That's no good to me I said. You could see someone upstairs in the
Genius Bar he said. It was then I realised that I was in the
Cretin Bar."

He didn't get much further in the genius bar, but they demonstrated
that it worked perfectly there.

We now seem to have established that connection improves (although he
thinks it's still not right) when he turns off his mains network
device. I'm wondering now whether these iPads have any RF screening
round the main pcb or whether the wifi section has a really wideband
front end? I've thought of taking some kitchen foil over when I go, but
that might make the touchscreen a bit hard to read.

He can't really afford to cable his house to be able to remove the
mains networking, so I'll try to narrow down his wifi as tightly as
possible. I can take another router over to use as a separate wireless
access point.


Also, if you haven't already, try different channels. Some will work
better in some situations depending on what else is about.

My wifi used to drop out in the kitchen at times, eventually realised it
was interference from the microwave, swapping channels solved it
--
Chris French

On 23 Jun,
John Williamson wrote:

Reads specification It seems that the homeplugs are carrying 200MBps
of data. They say they use between 2 and 28MHz. If they're using spread
spectrum, then the bandwidth of each carrier can be reduced, but the
overall bandwidth stays the same, surely?

I'm glad that I don't use LW, MW or SW AM radio nowadays. Homeplugs have
been reported as wiping out reception of weak stations for quite a
distance from the installation.

It certainly does. I've currently got virtually all frequencies wiped out
between 1.8 and 30 MHz. Not just weak stations too!

Twisted pair ethernet doesn't, especially the shielded stuff.

There's a little leakage from that. My IPcam gives a little hash from its
ethernet connection, about 40dB down on what I get fron a neighbour's
homeplug 30 metres away, and 30 dB down on someone else about 200 metres
away.

I'm awaiting Ofcom's assistance on the homeplug.

--
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