BlackBerry® PlayBook™

[CardinalBasil]

Thanks for posting this work around. The wireless connectivity issue was starting to ruin my, otherwise awesome, PlayBook experience but is now all working.

Hopefully RIM takes note of this and patches in the next update.

[gduggan]

I just picked up a 32GB PlayBook the other day and I'm experiencing similar difficulties on 3 different networks! At home on my SMC router provided by my ISP, at my parents home with their NetGear and at my university campus on their network, it can't hold a connection for very long and when it does connect it's by G not N. All my other devices connect fine including my Bold 9700. 

[peartree323]

I just bought the playbook a couple of days ago and first thing i noticed was that wireless connection was g. Took advantage of 90 day free tech support and called bb support who after putting me on hold for 5min told me the playbook only communicates at g at the moment. I repeat, bb tech support said playbook is only capable of wireless g at the moment and that maybe a future software update would address n connectivity. This is in direct contrast to published info/specs out there indicating playbook is wireless n enabled.

[rat-7]

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peartree323 wrote:
I just bought the playbook a couple of days ago and first thing i noticed was that wireless connection was g. Took advantage of 90 day free tech support and called bb support who after putting me on hold for 5min told me the playbook only communicates at g at the moment. I repeat, bb tech support said playbook is only capable of wireless g at the moment and that maybe a future software update would address n connectivity. This is in direct contrast to published info/specs out there indicating playbook is wireless n enabled.

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Well I can tell you that my Playbook is using 802.11N since I bought on April 19 2011

[thinkofitnow]

How about shutting down all wireless security, and instead lock down the router by HARDWARE MAC address?

This seems to alleviate authentication issues & speeds up my connection considerably, since the router & the device connecting to the router have no need to encrypt & decrypt data going into and out of the router & device.

My Wireless N router is set to mixed as well, since I also have a PS3 which uses the G mode.

Also, nobody will be able to connect to your wireless network unless they appear in the MAC address list.

The only negative part of doing it this way is that you will need to login to your router configuration\wireless\security settings each time you wish to add a new wireless device to your network. But you only need to do this once per device, because the HARDWARE MAC address of the device is saved in the list which is contained in the router itself..

[Pinetree]

I hope that you have not set your environment as you have indicated! It is pretty easy to spoof a MAC id these days - clone the MAC id - and have a free run of your site. Like WEP, MAC spoofing is quite simple and not a form of security on its own.

[gstammw]

My Playbook is on 2.0.1.358 and I also got problems with 802.11n.

They playbook connects to 802.11n-networks that are set to WPA2:TKIP+AES at about 65mbps but it can hardly transfer any data. The througput is really bad and the connection seems to hang although the accesspoint as wells as the playbook show a strong signal. This happens on both 2.4ghz as wells as 5ghz.

I'v tried different settings on the 2.4ghz-band in bgn-mix.mode and when the channelbandwidh is set to 40mhz the playbook completely kills any wifi transmission of other devices connected to the same accesspoint. When switching back to 20mhz (which means lower bandwidth) the other devices can see ping times increasing a little or lossing 1-2 pings when the playbook uses wifi. On the playbook the connection is hardly working as described above.

On the 5ghz band in an-mix.mode the behavior os the same but the accesspoint shows a singl strength of only 60-70 for the playbook although it is very close to the ap.

I'v measured the spectrum and the accesspoint(s) is/are on non colliding channels.

==> Conclusion: 802.11n is completely broken on the playbook. One can only use 802.11g/a-modes.

Workaround: set your ap to bg-mixmode and skip the n mode. for the 5ghz band this is a-only mode without any n-mode.

RIM, PLEASE PROVIDE A FIX FOR THIS ASAP TO GET 802.11N WORKING!!!!

And immediately provide a SHORTFIX so that the playbook will only use 802.11g or 802.11a so that other devices on the same ap will no longer be negatively be affected.

[knottyrope]

N works fine for me on my torch and playbook but N isnt the best on all wifi routers.

Look at my thread solving my WiFi issue.

http://supportforums.blackberry.com/t5/BlackBerry-Bold-9700-smartphone/Netgear-WVPN824-WiFi-issue-co...

[gstammw]

I'm sorry but that's not a solution.

Basically you are suggesting to turn 802.11N off and fall back to 802.11G - but that's like living in stone age and not an option on public hotspots or foreign networks.

802.11n ist neither on 2.4ghz nor on 5ghz working properly and its the Playbook's fault.

The AP is working properly other devices don't have any problems at all, QoS is turned off and so on.

This must be a software problem in the Playbook caus it even kills the whole commmunication on the AP for other clients.

Waiting for a FIX FROM RIM!

[nuttyalot]

Hello peartree323, did you ever get sucess with the n router query? I am having the same issue!! This one is brandnew and opened at christmas! I have been told the n router is sorted but i have had no luck - should I have chosen a different tablet??