weird connection issue with my iphone 4 and airport extreme

ive used this setup at my old house using at&t uverse internet without any issues. i recently moved and they do not offer uverse so i now have comcast.

i just recently moved in and they finally had a chance to hook up my internet through comcast. everything went smooth for install and had my macbook pro hard wired straight from my modem just to get it working. after the contractor left i went to go set up my airport extreme and did a reset on it too since everything is different and new. heres what i have

- comcast cable internet
- motorola 3.0 docsis modem model sb6120
- airport extreme base station.

devices so far are

- my macbook pro
- iphone 4
- ps3 (hard wired)

so i go through the normal setup through airport utility. have it create a wireless network. most are default i believe.

radio mode on auto (802.11 a/n - 802.11 b/g/n), radio channel on auto, wpa2 personal encryption and my password is 8 characters and numbers. mac address control not enabled. and its on bridge.

everything seems fine and my macbook connects without an issue getting 22Mbps down and almost 4Mbps up.

heres the problem

i get on my iphone and it sees the wireless network name i made. i tap on it and it asks for a password. i type it in and it connects like normal. says im connected and has a check mark next to the network name.

but at the top it still says im using 3g and not wifi. my 3g signal is pretty weak at my new house so data is pretty slow so i can tell if its on 3g or not. so i made it forget the network and do it again. nothing. i went to general and reset all network settings. still nothing. turn it off and back on. nothing. reset and changed my password on the wireless network... nothing. took encryption OFF and no password at all. NOTHING

am i missing something here? a weird small setting in the airport extreme i missed?

my iphone says im connected to wifi but its still in 3g running 3g speeds. my macbook pro works perfect wirelessly through the network.

HELP?!

Make sure one of your radio channels are set on 2.4 GHz g or n as the iPhone can not do 5GHz n which is what it sounds like if you use the same name for both radios I do make sure your not selecting the one with 5GHz in parenthesis next to it.

Welcome to the Mac Forums.

I don't think there's anything wrong with your settings on the AE, especially since your MBP is working OK. Your up and down speeds are real good.

Do you have everything backed up on the iPhone? Music, apps, photos, etc.? If you do, try a reset. I'm referring to a hard reset. See this.

osxx said:

Make sure one of your radio channels are set on 2.4 GHz g or n as the iPhone can not do 5GHz n which is what it sounds like if you use the same name for both radios I do make sure your not selecting the one with 5GHz in parenthesis next to it.

Click to expand...

ok this part confuses me a bit.

there are 2 different network names that i made. one is normal and the other has 5ghz next to it. i can see this in my macbook with i click on the wifi network signal at the top.

on my iphone i only see one network name i made, the one with 5ghz next to it doesnt show up at all.

when i go into my airport utility it lets me pick how i want the 802.11 whether its a/n-b/g/n (automatic) or just a/n-b/g or a-b/g/. i tried all the options and nothing works still.

then under radio channels i can pick auto or manual. if i pick manual i can select which channel i want for the 2.4 or 5ghz. 2.4 i can pick from 1-11 and 5ghz i can pick from 36-160 but its all random and skips a lot in between. (i left this on auto)

is there something i need to change here?

This sounds right I just don't use auto channel and manually select one I use iStumbler to look at my traffic around me and use the channel with the least amount
of traffic with the best signal to noise.Have you tried renew lease in wi-fi network settings in the phone?

osxx said:

This sounds right I just don't use auto channel and manually select one I use iStumbler to look at my traffic around me and use the channel with the least amount
of traffic with the best signal to noise.Have you tried renew lease in wi-fi network settings in the phone?

Click to expand...

yeah ive hit that renew lease button like 20 times already... lol

ok i ruled out the fact that it might be my iphone...
my roommates came home. one has an iphone 4 as well and the other is a iphone 3gs.

both of the other iphones do the exact same thing mine does. put in password, it checks, looks like its connected but still says 3g at the top. so i know its not just my phone

Ok it could very well be the 2.4GHz radio download iStumbler or a program like it
and see what it says your signal strength is remember Macs will auto connect to the 5GHz radio if present so while the 5 may be functioning ok the 2.4 may not these are
2 separate radios or a setting is off.

now im thinking it has something to do with comcast or modem.

i tried using my ps3 which is hard wired to the airport and configured the ps3 for wired. the ps3 usually detects everything automatically and connects. but it cannot obtain an IP address at all.

i pulled out another macbook and it also cannot connect to the internet wirelessly. i open system preferences and network and click assist me. it goes through steps telling me to reset modem then click ok once done. and when i do that my main macbook pro that was previously connected says another device is trying to use my ip. please connect again later.

so i continue with the other macbook that has not been on the network. it then asks is there a router or firewall in between i click ok then it tells me to reset that and wait for it to restart and click ok. by then everything starts working on the other macbook but mine no longer works. i follow the same steps again with my macbook pro that was originally connected at first and it kicked the other one off saying another device is using your computers ip.

seems like the iphones cant connect for the same reason as the ps3 or my other macbook

is the airports ip suppose to be the same as the ip my computer/network?

sorry for all the dumb noob questions. im not very tech savvy or know much about internet and networking

also when my iphone says its connected it has the same beginning ip as the airport (169.254.xx.xxx) and the subnet mask is 255.255.0.0.

when i go to the whats my ip website on my computer thats connected... its the 76.31.26.48.

This sounds like an issue 2Wire causes with AEBS conneted via bridge mode can you
list the model number of the modem you have and usually going to the re new lease
fixes it for me I go thrugh this once a month. The only way around this would be to put the AEBS in DMZ and set the AEBS to distribute ip's .

osxx said:

This sounds like an issue 2Wire causes with AEBS conneted via bridge mode can you
list the model number of the modem you have and usually going to the re new lease
fixes it for me I go thrugh this once a month. The only way around this would be to put the AEBS in DMZ and set the AEBS to distribute ip's .

Click to expand...

He did:

booja said:

- motorola 3.0 docsis modem model sb6120

Click to expand...

I would recommend setting the AEBS to DMZ and letting it distribute internal IPs as well. That way you can simply connect devices on the fly as desired.

Here is something you might want to know. Firmware Update Cripples Some Motorola SB6120 DOC 3 Modems - Charter users left with very nice paperweights... | DSLReports.com, ISP Information

Did any of this stuff resolve the OP's problems? I'm trading in a really old Netgear Modem attached to a AE5 for a SB6120 this very afternoon. After reading this, I'm stressing out that everything works as flawlessly as Netgear/AE combo has for the last month