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iphone connected to wifi but always chooses cellular

I have two iPhone 7 Plus phones. Both are connected to the same wifi as well as every device in my house. But my iPhone appears to choose the cellular connection for data. If I tell the app to only use wifi, or turn off cellular data, it works fine on wifi. But then its not usable when I leave my home. Simply opening up safari to google, it will say no internet on my phone but my wife goes right to it (cell connection is only 1 bar in my home). My instagram is crazy slow or won't connect, youtube videos will not play.


I have rebooted the phone and reset the network settings as suggested in most google searches. IOS is up to date. I am about to wipe and re-activate. But I wanted to look for other suggestions before I take this rout.

iPhone 7 Plus

Posted on Jan 30, 2020 10:36 AM

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Posted on Jan 30, 2020 11:03 AM

Try checking WIFI assist - go to cellular> data> all way at bottom, then toggle slider to a green bar

& at top make sure you have under cellular data options Enable LTE & Data roaming

10 replies

Jan 31, 2020 7:16 AM in response to mgrabow

You want Wi-Fi assist to be OFF. If it is on, when the Wi-Fi signal is weak or slow it will switch to cellular. But even with the switch off, if the Wi-Fi signal is very weak or intermittent it will switch to cellular also. And it will always use cellular when the phone is asleep, because Wi-Fi turns off 30 seconds after the phone goes to sleep to preserve battery life (Wi-Fi, when connected, uses power continuously whether it is being used for data transfer or not).


There are also some functions that always use cellular data: Visual Voicemail, MMS messaging, and Notifications. That’s because all of these originate at your carrier, and your carrier doesn’t know anything about your Wi-Fi connection.

Feb 1, 2020 7:42 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

It does not matter what WiFi I am on. It happens everywhere. And yes I have rebooted WiFi. I have no way of being certain it is actually ignoring my WiFi. But if cellular and WiFi are full signal strength the phone loads pages fast. It’s only slow or no internet when cellular is poor. YouTube seems to work fine on WiFi. As does spodify. If I tell the apps with issues to only use WiFi they work fine.

Jan 31, 2020 7:10 AM in response to mgrabow

You can always sip on and off manually when you leave if you have to - I would use the control panel and tap and hold on the icon. ALSO you do have 1 bar - so maybe get a range extender or a better newer wifi?

You might just need to just reset all network settings and try again... Usually HOLDING airplane mode on then off for 30 seconds fixes or helps connect for me. You may need to put in airplane mode then power OFF, wait a minute and power back on and turn off airplane mode.

Feb 25, 2020 9:48 AM in response to mgrabow

Man this is frustrating. I am constantly shutting off cell data to use WiFi and forgetting to turn it back on when I leave the house or office. While I was trying to post this reply it failed because of the connection to cell was NOT LTE. I am linked to my friends personal iPhone hot spot (he is on a different carrier” and you can see it searching

iphone connected to wifi but always chooses cellular

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