How to debug iPhone WiFi calling degrading after ~10 minutes?
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I have an iPhone 15 Plus using a UniFi A.P. with PfSense Plus 24.xx and I have WiFi calling as well because I'm in a poor cellular area. Got fiber to the house though, go figure.
Anyway, I use WiFi calling for 1-2 hours at times and it's rock solid. Hope that helps.
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@LunchBoxSteve Good to hear you aren't having any issues. Can you tell me what you have Firewall Optimization Options set to; System/ Advanced/ Firewall & NAT / Firewall Optimization Options
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@Normandy214 ... I have it set to "Normal"
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@tgl said in How to debug iPhone WiFi calling degrading after ~10 minutes?:
@terryzb said in How to debug iPhone WiFi calling degrading after ~10 minutes?:
I don't really like your channel setup though: putting all the APs on the same channel is a recipe for causing unnecessary interference. Can you put them on different channels (preferably 1, 6, 11 in some order)?
The Airports are all set to Auto for channel. I've never changed them. I'm not clear on how you would like them assigned them. Can you describe what you mean for the 3 Airports and the 3 SSIDs?
Also, in 2.4G you are looking at a -30dBm signal which is really just unreasonably strong. I'd definitely try the move-away-from-the-AP experiment.
Thanks for the suggestion, I will see if It's possible but it's a pretty small office.
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@terryzb said in How to debug iPhone WiFi calling degrading after ~10 minutes?:
The Airports are all set to Auto for channel. I've never changed them. I'm not clear on how you would like them assigned them. Can you describe what you mean for the 3 Airports and the 3 SSIDs?
You will only be able to change channels per-radio not per-SSID. There should be a single 2.4G channel setting per Airport. Unless you have near neighbors you want to avoid conflicting with, it doesn't matter which Airport you put on which channel --- just pick one for channel 1, one for channel 6, etc. Make sure the channel width is set to 20MHz, too (I forget whether the Airports ever offered the option of 40MHz, but you don't want to use that in the 2.4G band).
It looks like you already have the 5GHz channels spread apart a bit, but those could likely be tuned better as well. If you are using 80MHz channel width in 5GHz, then channels 149 and 157 actually overlap. That's better than having them be the very same channel, but it's not great. I'm surprised that nothing in the 36-48 channel range is being used: 36-48 and 149-161 are the normal 5GHz options in the US. The reason 60 is not in that set is that it's in the "DFS" spectrum where the AP is required to listen for radar pulses and shut itself down if it hears one. If you are in the boonies this isn't such a problem, but if you are near a major airport or weather radar station those channels can be pretty unusable. (I'm wondering now if this could have anything to do with your experience of 5GHz being unreliable. It is fine for most people.)
Actually, given that it doesn't sound like you have large bandwidth needs, you probably should set the channel width to 40MHz in the 5GHz band. Then 149 and 157 are perfectly fine, they won't overlap --- and you could set the third AP to 36 or 44 and it would also be fine, with no DFS hazard.
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@tgl said in How to debug iPhone WiFi calling degrading after ~10 minutes?:
@terryzb said in How to debug iPhone WiFi calling degrading after ~10 minutes?:
The Airports are all set to Auto for channel. I've never changed them. I'm not clear on how you would like them assigned them. Can you describe what you mean for the 3 Airports and the 3 SSIDs?
You will only be able to change channels per-radio not per-SSID. There should be a single 2.4G channel setting per Airport. Unless you have near neighbors you want to avoid conflicting with, it doesn't matter which Airport you put on which channel --- just pick one for channel 1, one for channel 6, etc. Make sure the channel width is set to 20MHz, too (I forget whether the Airports ever offered the option of 40MHz, but you don't want to use that in the 2.4G band).
It looks like you already have the 5GHz channels spread apart a bit, but those could likely be tuned better as well. If you are using 80MHz channel width in 5GHz, then channels 149 and 157 actually overlap. That's better than having them be the very same channel, but it's not great. I'm surprised that nothing in the 36-48 channel range is being used: 36-48 and 149-161 are the normal 5GHz options in the US. The reason 60 is not in that set is that it's in the "DFS" spectrum where the AP is required to listen for radar pulses and shut itself down if it hears one. If you are in the boonies this isn't such a problem, but if you are near a major airport or weather radar station those channels can be pretty unusable. (I'm wondering now if this could have anything to do with your experience of 5GHz being unreliable. It is fine for most people.)
Actually, given that it doesn't sound like you have large bandwidth needs, you probably should set the channel width to 40MHz in the 5GHz band. Then 149 and 157 are perfectly fine, they won't overlap --- and you could set the third AP to 36 or 44 and it would also be fine, with no DFS hazard.
So the Extreme and the Express (with the wired backhaul) list channels 1-11 as choices for the 2.4GHz radio and 36, 44, 48, 149, 153, 157 and 161 for the 5GHz radio. The Express in the garage that is extended via WiFi does not allow for any channel selection. There is no option for channel width, but it looks pre-determined based on the distance between channel options. I will run the WiFI scan again when I get home and pay attention to what channels my neighbors are on.
Thank you very much for your help @tgl
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@terryzb said in How to debug iPhone WiFi calling degrading after ~10 minutes?:
So the Extreme and the Express (with the wired backhaul) list channels 1-11 as choices for the 2.4GHz radio and 36, 44, 48, 149, 153, 157 and 161 for the 5GHz radio.
Yeah, that sort of matches my memory --- I was surprised to see channel 60 in this discussion, because with Apple's propensity for it-just-works choices, I would not have thought they'd let users choose options as trouble-prone as DFS channels. I wonder what you were seeing on channel 60 ... maybe a neighbor's signal?
The Express in the garage that is extended via WiFi does not allow for any channel selection.
That makes sense too. It would have to match its uplink's channel so as to communicate for backhaul. (I'd forgotten that we weren't dealing with 3 wired APs here.) So you really only need to choose two 5GHz channels; I'd recommend one from 36-48 and one from 149-161.
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@LunchBoxSteve I use Wi-Fi calling a lot as cell is limited in my large old house. I use 3 Cisco 150ax APs and they work great. The last one I bought was $102. These are the small business Cisco devices and they use a GUI to setup not IOS.
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@coxhaus said in How to debug iPhone WiFi calling degrading after ~10 minutes?:
@LunchBoxSteve I use Wi-Fi calling a lot as cell is limited in my large old house. I use 3 Cisco 150ax APs and they work great. The last one I bought was $102. These are the small business Cisco devices and they use a GUI to setup not IOS.
Thanks for the info on the 150ax's.
Airports can be configured via Desktop GUI or an iOS app. -
The following settings have worked well for me for using WiFi calling:
System/Advanced/Firewall & NAT
- Packet Processing Section:
- Firewall Optimization Options =
Normal
- State Timeouts Section - change the defaults for the following entries to these values:
- UDP First =
300 - UDP Single =
150 - UDP Multiple =
600
One last thing I would recommend is placing the phone in airplane mode when using WiFi calling so it doesn't try to switch back and forth between WiFi and cellular network.
Hope this helps.
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@tgl said in How to debug iPhone WiFi calling degrading after ~10 minutes?:
@terryzb said in How to debug iPhone WiFi calling degrading after ~10 minutes?:
So the Extreme and the Express (with the wired backhaul) list channels 1-11 as choices for the 2.4GHz radio and 36, 44, 48, 149, 153, 157 and 161 for the 5GHz radio.
Yeah, that sort of matches my memory --- I was surprised to see channel 60 in this discussion, because with Apple's propensity for it-just-works choices, I would not have thought they'd let users choose options as trouble-prone as DFS channels. I wonder what you were seeing on channel 60 ... maybe a neighbor's signal?
I double-checked my screen shots and it was definitely me.
The Express in the garage that is extended via WiFi does not allow for any channel selection.
That makes sense too. It would have to match its uplink's channel so as to communicate for backhaul. (I'd forgotten that we weren't dealing with 3 wired APs here.) So you really only need to choose two 5GHz channels; I'd recommend one from 36-48 and one from 149-161.
After making sure the neighbors weren't on them, I chose channel 36 for the Extreme's 5G and channel 149 for the Express's 5G. Another scan:
AP Extreme
Ch 1: home, guest @ -33 dBm (auto)
Ch 36: home5G, guest @ -40 dBmAP Express (wired backhaul)
Ch 11: home, guest @ -78 dBm (auto)
Ch 149: home5G, guest @ -85 dBmAP Express (WiFi extended, garage)
Ch 11: home, guest @ -82 dBm (auto, can't set)
Ch 52: home5G, guest @ -87 dBm (auto, can't set)So I changed the channels and pfSense's Firewall Optimization to Conservative. I'll try it like this and see what happens. Thanks again for the help!
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Is one of those things a WiFi extender? No ethernet backhaul? Those can be..... interesting!
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@terryzb said in How to debug iPhone WiFi calling degrading after ~10 minutes?:
AP Express (wired backhaul)
Ch 11: home, guest @ -78 dBm (auto)
Ch 149: home5G, guest @ -85 dBmAP Express (WiFi extended, garage)
Ch 11: home, guest @ -82 dBm (auto, can't set)
Ch 52: home5G, guest @ -87 dBm (auto, can't set)<spock>Fascinating.</spock> I never tried running any Airports in extender mode, so this is new to me. What we can see here is
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The Expresses must be running their backhaul link in 2.4GHz, because channel 11 is the only one they have in common. I find that surprising because all the more modern "mesh" gear I've seen insists on doing backhaul in 5GHz. I guess Apple thought 2.4 was more reliable back in the day.
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The extender is auto-choosing its 5GHz channel, and is choosing a DFS channel. That seems quite bizarre. (But now we know where that channel-60 signal came from, anyway: must have been the extender's previous choice.)
Anyway, if you can't adjust transmit power then this is about as far as we can go in tuning your wifi setup. We'll have to await results to see if this helps noticeably. Good luck!
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@tman222 My cell reception is too weak in my old house so I don't have to use airplane mode. Also Wi-Fi roaming works in my house OK. It may drop 1 or 2 words at most when roaming but it never drops the call.
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@stephenw10
"Is one of those things a WiFi extender? No ethernet backhaul? Those can be..... interesting!"Yes, the Airport Express in the garage is acting as a WiFi extender. There's no hardline out there (yet -- maybe an end of year project).
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Well I would try simply turning that off as a test. They do weird layer2 hackery to make it work and can definitely cause problems. I would always prefer Powerline Ethernet over WiFi extenders. Or mesh even.
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@stephenw10 If you happen to have coax (for cable TV) in your walls, see about repurposing that for MoCA. Substantially more performant and reliable than powerline ethernet, IME.
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Yes I agree. No one in the UK has that though.
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Found a setting on newer iOS that may help here as well … wife was reporting in parts of the house her phone would swap from WiFi back to 5g during a call
Can try disabling Settings -> Cellular -> Wi-Fi Assist (“automatically use cellular data when Wi-Fi connectivity is poor”)… maybe a dead spot or between APs fools the iPhone to opt for the crappy cellular signal ?
