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My 12-inch MacBook (2017) has been suffering from connecting to my Verizon FIOS wifi. It will disconnect itself after a few dozen minutes for no reason. Sometimes it will reconnect but most of the time I have to manually disable wireless and re-enable to reconnect.

The MacBook seems fine connecting to a Wifi hotspot from my smartphone (Pixel 6a) though. Ironically the Wifi hotspot was actually from the same Verizon FIOS. In other words, the MacBook can't establish a reliable connection with FIOS but will do if using smartphone hotspot as proxy... What's wrong with MacBook

zhh210
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  • Have you tried WiFi at a different location (like a cafe) to see if it’s isolated to your FiOS router? This will help in determining the direction to procede. As worded right now, it appears to be a Verizon problem which we can’t really help you with. – Allan Jan 03 '23 at 01:00
  • @Allan, yes it works with Starbucks wifi. What puzzles me is that my MacBook Pro has no such problem. Only MacBook 12-inch keeps failing. – zhh210 Jan 03 '23 at 01:08
  • Go to System Preferences > Network > WiFi > Advanced and select the Preferred network(s) which correspond to the FiOS networks with issues and delete them (click the minus icon.) Recreate the WiFi network(s) and make sure to drag them to the top of the list of other preferred networks. Does that help? – IconDaemon Jan 03 '23 at 01:10
  • So, just to clarify, the MBP and MB12 both work at Starbucks just fine, but at home, the MBP works fine but the MB12 does not? – Allan Jan 03 '23 at 01:14
  • @Allan exactly, only MB12 fails on my home FIOS wifi – zhh210 Jan 03 '23 at 01:20
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    I’ve run into similar situations. The way I fixed it was to buy my own wireless access points and not depend on the “budget” stuff the cable companies give you. Try Ubiquiti. Since switching, my WiFi networks are rock solid with no compatibility issues regardless of device manufacturer (Apple, Microsoft, Dell, etc) – Allan Jan 03 '23 at 01:27
  • @IconDaemon, the issue persists, my MacBook just can't keep connected to Fios. It can only do using smartphone hotspot as a bridge. Also the speed is faster with hotspot than connecting directly to Fios.. – zhh210 Jan 03 '23 at 01:53
  • From my own experience, my ATT iPhone deliberately disconnects from my FiOS WiFi when I turn on the hotspot and uses only cell service. If you turn cellular off on your iPhone and connect only to your FiOS WiFi, do you have problems? – IconDaemon Jan 03 '23 at 12:45
  • @IconDaemon, cellphone doesn't have any problem. The problem is Macbook can only get robust connection to wifi through cellphone. Without a cellphone as bridge (hotspot), Macbook will frequently disconnect from FIOS. – zhh210 Jan 11 '23 at 21:17

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