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iPhone's WIFI behaving different depending on the Country of Origin

AVIT-277
Level 1
Level 1

Hi guys,

I'm new to this Community and I need help.

Our organisation was 124 Cisco 2802I and E Access Points controlled by a Cisco 5520 WLC (8.10.162.0).

Recently I have had issues with losing connectivity on iPhones (Xs, 12Pro, 13) coming from Russia (RU guest phones). They connect very well, but once you give a bit of a distance between it and the Access Point (4-5m in open field), it switches to 4G very fast.

My personal iPhone (Xr) is coming from Finland (FS) and has no issues at all. I also have an iPhone 7 from China (CN) with no issues.

Is there any setting I should look at on my controller, is there any particularity regarding the iPhones coming from Russia?

Thanks a lot, much appreciated.

Claudiu.

3 Replies 3

marce1000
VIP
VIP

 

 - Question is if these devices are using modern wireless drivers , related to modern wifi-infrastructure , you could  for instance 

perform client debugging on the problematic clients which you can analyze with (but before then disable the 4G-escape option) :

                      https://cway.cisco.com/wireless-debug-analyzer

   You can also have  the controller configuration analyzed and or sanity-checked with :

                      https://cway.cisco.com/wireless-config-analyzer/

 M.



-- Each morning when I wake up and look into the mirror I always say ' Why am I so brilliant ? '
    When the mirror will then always repond to me with ' The only thing that exceeds your brilliance is your beauty! '

Arshad Safrulla
VIP Alumni
VIP Alumni

As I am aware Russian iPhone wi-fi specs doesn't differ from other countries, but for cellular yes they may have support for different bands depending on the region.

https://support.apple.com/en-ae/guide/deployment-reference-ios/apd1c22e481c/web

 

I would say follow @marce1000 advise and grab a debug client output from the WLC and run it against the debug analyzer. it should show you the deauth reason. From the following table you can know why WLC de-authenticated the client. 

https://community.cisco.com/t5/wireless-mobility-documents/802-11-association-status-802-11-deauth-reason-codes/ta-p/3148055

 

Also I would suggest you to check whether any manual overrides are done for AP TPC levels, channel width and check what's the lowest data rate set to mandatory.

 

As a rule of thumb, I follow the below when designing WiFi for Apple devices. This may change as per your site RF conditions, but for most this should work. So incase if you are redesigning you can consider the below.

1. Make use of 802.11k,v,r, for 802.11r I would strongly recommend for 802.1x deployments, for PSK you can test and deploy it yourself (but really not required)

2. Make use of the 5GHz, have the band select turned on, and you may also consider shutting down certain 2.4 radios in overlapping areas.

3. Have a well planned channel plan. Monitor the RF environment and remove the sticky neighbor channels from yours.

4. Disable all lower data rates. I have had good success with 18 mandatory, but your environment can be different. So take your survey findings to decide. 

5. Try not to exceed 25 clients per AP. 

6. Make sure the devices are upgraded, this will make sure latest wi-fi drivers are installed in devices.

7. Try not to exceed 21dbm for 5 GHz. 

8. Use narrow channel width's. 

AVIT-277
Level 1
Level 1

Hi Guys,

Sorry for the late reply, I am at Sea with limited connectivity.

I'll try this on and get back to you.

Thanks for all suggestions, much appreciated.

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