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I've had a problem with my Wi-Fi connection to a TP-Link router from MacBook Air. It has been solved by manually changing Wi-Fi channel on the router from "Automatic" to an average value.

What channel ranges do MacBook Air's Wi-Fi NICs support? Is there a way to tweak it to a required channel not visible by default?

P.S. My country is Ukraine and my router does have this value set.

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Do you want to narrow this down to a certain country since WiFi channels are different around the globe to comply with local radio laws or is that the point of the question - mixing a computer set for one region to a router set in another perhaps? – bmike Dec 11 '12 at 19:59
@bmike I live in Ukraine. But my other devices (Linux box and a few Androids) see the network perfectly. – EarlGray Dec 11 '12 at 20:01

1 Answer

up vote 2 down vote accepted

The manuals for all Air are stored online at http://support.apple.com/manuals/#macbookair and it looks like the latest Air is certified under the EU and Russia - but I don't see a good way to know precisely which channels are supported from a pre-sales or reference.

You can however, open your System Information utility and select Wi-Fi. It should show you the current Locale, Country Code and supported channels for your network adapter.

Wi-Fi Locale, Country Code and Supported Channels

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Ah, now I see: my router has channels 1-13 and it seems that "Automatic" means 13 in absence of other networks. Thanks – EarlGray Dec 11 '12 at 20:16
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In the EU channels 1-13 are allowed by regulation and also supported by Mac hardware. The Asia/Pacific region adds channel 14 but only goes down to 6. Channels 6-11 are supported all over the world on 2.4GHz (802.11b/g) – MacLemon Dec 12 '12 at 14:37

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