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5ghz channel widths

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bodean

Very Senior Member
In general should a “home user” use 40,80, or 160?

I’ve heard 40 because anything higher decreases wireless stability.
Also heard choose the highest you can for max speed.


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If they are in a congested area with lots of neighboring networks, I would use a lower amount. Unless they plan on frequent large file transfers between devices, the higher bandwidth won’t be needed.

Here’s an unscientific survey I just performed: I’ve got a 115Mbps Internet connection. On my smartphone a download test on 20Mhz wide 2.4 GHz channel was 93Mbps, a 80Mhz channel on 5Ghz was 115Mbps. So unless your internet is greater than 100Mbps, or have lots of simultaneous connections, you really don’t need to go above a 40Mhz channel width on 5Ghz.


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I’m curious what speeds you get on 80Mhz 5 GHz channel vs wired? I’m guessing you get about 700-800Mbps on wireless?


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Bottom line you paid for a AC router so in order to have AC you must be at 80 MHz. That's the bottom line. If you want a N only router then use 40 MHz on 5 GHz. Not me...
 
In general should a “home user” use 40,80, or 160?

I’ve heard 40 because anything higher decreases wireless stability.
Also heard choose the highest you can for max speed.

For the home - 80MHz is generally fine - in dense environments like apartment complexes and condo's - might consider at least trying 40MHz channels, as this can have some benefit if the 5GHz band is especially crowded.

I see a lot of 40MHz 802.11ac 5GHz deployed in the enterprise and hospitality areas - and even at 40MHz, 11ac offers a lot of benefits over the legacy N...

160MHz - not much benefit except to run up the marketing numbers, but if one has a client and router that supports it, it's worth trying at least.
 
Bottom line you paid for a AC router so in order to have AC you must be at 80 MHz. That's the bottom line. If you want a N only router then use 40 MHz on 5 GHz. Not me...
This is not true. 11ac is not just about 80 MHz bandwidth. AC has many improvements at the MAC layer that improve airtime efficiency, i.e. more bits per frame. An AC router uses AC protocols in 5 GHz, no matter what the channel width.

The problem with only YOU changing to 40 MHz is that everyone else still runs 80. So you will still be overlapping with someone else's channel use.

A 40 MHz plan only helps in an environment where it is part of a frequency use plan in a controlled area (campus, business, stadium).
 
I would think the only time you would need to reduce the wireless bandwidth is if you have so many devices that you are running out of internet bandwidth. Sounds like you have plenty.
 
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