iPhone WiFi Won’t Automatically Connect

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I recently updated my iPhone. I went from an iPhone 3gs to an iPhone 4. Two generations back and no Siri but a great phone by all accounts.

It 3gs was great too but it was slowing down and looking a little ragged. The 3gs had always been a reliable phone and worked wonderfully on the home wifi.

The phone automatically connects to the home wifi instead of using precious data. This is important when you have a daughter who uses the phone to watch Gangnam Style videos over and over again.

So you can imagine my surprise when within only a few hours I was getting text messages from AT&T alerting me that I had gone over my data plan already. In only a few hours my daughter had used up all the data on the phone.

And thus began many treks back and forth to various Apple Stores to exchange the phone.

3 times all told. And many hours on the phone with Apple Tech Support trying to troubleshoot.

Apple was very nice about it and was happy to swap out the phone, three times, but it still wasn’t solving the problem. Each time I would go to the Apple store, check in and wait underneath the iPod section of the store. The wait wasn’t long but after doing it three times it was getting a little old and I think the geniuses were getting tired of me. Or at least wanted me to bring donuts.

Each time they would patiently exchange the phone, pop out the SIM card and place it in the new phone.

I even asked if that might be the trouble since everything else was different but the SIM card was the same.

No, they assured me, it couldn’t be the SIM card because that’s the cellular stuff and not the data.

Still the phone didn’t work and I was getting frustrated and tired of driving back and forth to the mall.

Finally in a stroke of frustration I stopped by the AT&T store. I knew they would most likely direct me back to the Apple store but I thought I’d give it a try.

I was greeted by a friendly sales associate who introduced me to Ben after hearing my story.

Ben patiently listened to me, but didn’t think it was the SIM card any more than the geniuses at the Apple store did. However, he was happy to give me a new one just to humor me. He tried to explain why the SIM card was not the trouble and didn’t even take it personally when my eyes glazed over.

He then gave me his card and told me to text or call when I got home to let him know if it worked.

Lo and behold it did.

I don’t know what solved the issue but suddenly the iPhone was automatically connecting to the WiFi. AT&T was happy to credit my account $60 in data charges for one day. I don’t know how many bytes or whatever they are called are but I do know that $60 in one day is a lot of data.

So I am thrilled with AT&T and Ben for all his help. Ben wanted me to tell you that for every iPad or tablet you activate on AT&T for $10 they will credit your account $100. That’s a sweet deal and runs through Valentine’s Day. Which means you can get your sweetie a new tablet and save a $100. That’s almost better than chocolate.