Is your Router/Mobile Device mature enough to switch between 2.4 & 5 GHz ?

[sfx2000]

No different for a device that doesn't hop properly either though.

broken/bad device?

Don't kick the dog there man... yipe, yipe, yipe... bad device, shame on you...

 

[L&LD]

A reasonable expectation has never translated into a usable product for a reasonable amount of money.

I'm sure this is what will happen eventually, but right now it's hit or miss as this thread shows.

 

[sfx2000]

A reasonable expectation has never translated into a usable product for a reasonable amount of money.

I'm sure this is what will happen eventually, but right now it's hit or miss as this thread shows.

Reach out to vendor support, file a bug - most vendor SW engineers want to do the right thing - but if they don't know there's an issue...

 

[sfx2000]

it's hit or miss as this thread shows.

And FWIW - most devices actually do the right thing, a few don't...

@ASUS - I'm looking directly at you with the USB-56AC, it's one of the devices in default config that have significant trouble with Common SSID on multiple AP/Band configs... through some Win7/8 Advanced configs, and removing the ASUS "software" and letting Windows handle it, it can do the right thing...

 

[azazel1024]

Seems the consensus is effectively unanimous. Discrete ssid's per band are superior for the wireless world we're in now.

Like almost anything, leaving things in automatic is asking to accept below standard performance most of the time for the promise of mere convenience.

I, uh, think that is NOT the unanimous consensus. At least not if you've been reading the thread.

For usability, common. Often times for performance, it is common. There are edge cases where separate for each band gives the best performance, but most times that is actually not the case either (because 5GHz generally provides better close-in performance, especially with 802.11ac in the mix, but once you start moving far away, 2.4GHz can be faster).*

It is really only if you have a "flawed/stupid" client or the rare instances where you have significant, heavy and continuous usage where you need to divide devices across the bands. Then separate SSIDs are better.

But in most instances, that isn't really the case. Either in the consumer or enterprise space.

*I don't want to have to go "Oh, now that I walked in to X room, I should switch to 2.4GHz, because I know it is going to be faster now than 5GHz. Opps, I've wandered back over, time to switch back to 5GHz. This goes DOUBLE, because if you are using separate SSIDs and MULTIPLE access points, if you have something "stuck" on the 5GHz SSID...guess what, it'll stay there. So when you wander far away from one AP, you won't roam to the next AP or the current one's 2.4GHz band. You'll go to the 5GHz band on the other one. However, you need much closer spacing for APs for 5GHz coverage than 2.4GHz coverage. So if you were targeting a dual band deployment, you'll have poor 5GHz coverage, but hey, no worries, 2.4GHz can "fill in the gaps"...oh wait, only if you are manually switching SSIDs.

 

[Chrysalis]

yeah if it wasnt obvious I am comparing 5ghz ac to 2.4ghz which at best has N spec.

My AC phones on a 3 bar AC 5ghz blow a 5 bar 2.4ghz out the water, but the phone algorithm will think 2.4 is better due to the more bars.

My amazon firetv box which uses 5ghz N might be a different story, but since that is just a streaming box which I cannot test speeds etc. on and works fine using 5ghz I wont be changing it.

My laptop with 2 bars on 5ghz AC can still pull about 200mbit of throughput. Whilst my 2.4ghz 20mhz wide channel has a 72/150mbps connection speed never mind throughput.

 

[htismaqe]

I guess my question would be why you need that much bandwidth for a phone. A laptop sure, but not a phone...

 

[Chrysalis]

Well if we all thought that way I would be still on 5mbit adsl and using a 100mbit wireless G router

I can say tho consider many phones were built cheap with 1x1 mimo so N was absolute max 72mbit, real world conditions more like 30-50mbit. MY internet is 70mbit, so at least AC removes my wireless as the bottleneck. Also consider that wifi isnt sustained steady throughput like ethernet the min points on AC are higher than N and G etc.

 

[stevech]

My AC phones on a 3 bar AC 5ghz blow a 5 bar 2.4ghz out the water.

There's that dumb <expletive> term again.

 

[htismaqe]

Well if we all thought that way I would be still on 5mbit adsl and using a 100mbit wireless G router

I kind of expected that, even if the notion is ridiculous. There's a difference between speed and bandwidth. Expanding bandwidth is about serving more clients and not always about improving speeds for just one. Way too much obsession with link rates and not enough concern about application performance and the user experience.

I can say tho consider many phones were built cheap with 1x1 mimo so N was absolute max 72mbit, real world conditions more like 30-50mbit. MY internet is 70mbit, so at least AC removes my wireless as the bottleneck. Also consider that wifi isnt sustained steady throughput like ethernet the min points on AC are higher than N and G etc.

Sorry, but the idea that you don't want wireless to be a bottleneck between your phone and a 70Mbit internet connection is just kind of silly. Your phone doesn't require anywhere near that much bandwidth during normal operation.

 

[Chrysalis]

There's that dumb <expletive> term again.

so you have never heard the phrase before?

its blown out of the water, once more for you

 

[Chrysalis]

I kind of expected that, even if the notion is ridiculous. There's a difference between speed and bandwidth. Expanding bandwidth is about serving more clients and not always about improving speeds for just one. Way too much obsession with link rates and not enough concern about application performance and the user experience.



Sorry, but the idea that you don't want wireless to be a bottleneck between your phone and a 70Mbit internet connection is just kind of silly. Your phone doesn't require anywhere near that much bandwidth during normal operation.

To be frank its irrelevant as to why I need or want the performance, the fact is I want it, and thats enough. I am sure I am not the only person who wants it either. I gave a good reason why I dont use shared ssid's and you still dont accept it because you think I shouldnt have that performance.

 

[L&LD]

htismaqe, I have to agree with Chrysalis here.

More performance is always better. Always. Just as 640KB ram wasn't enough even back in 1981.

I often help users spec and configure computers for specific tasks and some even have the budget to go 'overkill' on some of those projects.

Not one customer has every felt their computer system was 'too much' a year or two later (even if it was still adequate).

The os, software and the updates will always expand to make even today's best systems old news in mere months time frames.

Having 70Mbps on a phone today may be overkill for a week or so, but 2016 is coming fast and 2020 doesn't look so far away to me anymore either.

 

[htismaqe]

To be frank its irrelevant as to why I need or want the performance, the fact is I want it, and thats enough. I am sure I am not the only person who wants it either. I gave a good reason why I dont use shared ssid's and you still dont accept it because you think I shouldnt have that performance.

I didn't mean to imply that YOU specifically shouldn't want what you want. Sorry, you're absolutely entitled to your opinion. I do think that it is counter-productive in this day and age, when networking companies are churning out more and more half-baked, broken devices so that they can capitalize on the obsession with more and more speed.

As for whether or not to use shared SSID's, you'll notice that I never poo-poo'd your choice to use discrete SSIDs. In fact, the only time I addressed you directly was in response to your post about link speeds. When speaking about the use of discrete SSIDs or not, I was merely defending my choice not to use discrete SSIDs. Both options have their merits and every situation is different.

At the end of the day, I don't care how you setup your network or how much performance you get. That's your business. For me personally, setting up common SSIDs works and works well. That's all I need.

 

[htismaqe]

htismaqe, I have to agree with Chrysalis here.

More performance is always better. Always. Just as 640KB ram wasn't enough even back in 1981.

I often help users spec and configure computers for specific tasks and some even have the budget to go 'overkill' on some of those projects.

Not one customer has every felt their computer system was 'too much' a year or two later (even if it was still adequate).

The os, software and the updates will always expand to make even today's best systems old news in mere months time frames.

Having 70Mbps on a phone today may be overkill for a week or so, but 2016 is coming fast and 2020 doesn't look so far away to me anymore either.

I don't disagree. But it isn't about whether or not more performance is better, it's about whether or not it's necessary. At some point, the increased performance is imperceptible to the average user and is likely incurring cost, whether hard dollars are soft costs in terms of support.

 

[Chrysalis]

I didn't mean to imply that YOU specifically shouldn't want what you want. Sorry, you're absolutely entitled to your opinion. I do think that it is counter-productive in this day and age, when networking companies are churning out more and more half-baked, broken devices so that they can capitalize on the obsession with more and more speed.

As for whether or not to use shared SSID's, you'll notice that I never poo-poo'd your choice to use discrete SSIDs. In fact, the only time I addressed you directly was in response to your post about link speeds. When speaking about the use of discrete SSIDs or not, I was merely defending my choice not to use discrete SSIDs. Both options have their merits and every situation is different.

At the end of the day, I don't care how you setup your network or how much performance you get. That's your business. For me personally, setting up common SSIDs works and works well. That's all I need.

ok thats fair enough, I think there is no universal right answer to the question really.

I live in a small enclosed flat, I dont lose coverage anywhere, so I dont need roaming. But I want the max performance possible so I use discrete.

But I do resepect everyone's situation is different and if one needs multiple access points or to flip between 5ghz and 2.4ghz due to signal strength issues there is merit for wifi roaming.

 

[htismaqe]

No harm, no foul. Frankly, I enjoy a good, healthy debate.

I can totally see where you are coming from living in a smaller, confined area, I'm assuming with quite a few neighbors.

By contrast, I live on an acre-and-a-half with a 2500-square foot house and outdoor living spaces. Closest neighbor is over a mile away. Without the ability to roam, I would have to manually switch mobile devices like my iPhone when I'm out on the back deck or out by the fire pit. I can cover those areas with 2.4Ghz because I have zero competition for channels.

 

[PolarBear]

I have tried both discrete SSIDs and using the same SSID thoughout the house. (3 APs, all with 2.4 and 5GHz radios).

Finally I settled for using the same SSID throughout, since then our devices have a chance to switch over seemlessly as we walk about. (Most are well behaved and do this.)

Using separate SSIDs meant that it was _guaranteed_ that manual intervention was required in every case, so in my mind this was clearly not as good.

But use cases are different and everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

my 2c

 

[azazel1024]

I have tried both discrete SSIDs and using the same SSID thoughout the house. (3 APs, all with 2.4 and 5GHz radios).

Finally I settled for using the same SSID throughout, since then our devices have a chance to switch over seemlessly as we walk about. (Most are well behaved and do this.)

Using separate SSIDs meant that it was _guaranteed_ that manual intervention was required in every case, so in my mind this was clearly not as good.

But use cases are different and everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

my 2c

My findings too.

Also I've found that my phones are very graceful on which band to choose. I can't speak to "bars", but looking at absolute signal strength on my iPhone 5, it tends to only shift down to 2.4GHz once 5GHz is about 20dB lower in signal strength...which being 20MHz on 2.4GHz and 40MHz on 5GHz, is a pretty good decision. Generally when it does, performance perks up just a little. Example, I get roughly 30Mbps down and 12Mbps up when I am at the "edge" of 5GHz range before it'll switch to 2.4GHz. Move just a bit, wait a moment and it shifts to 2.4GHz. At that point I get 31Mbps down and 16Mbps up.

I've done much less testing on my wife's iPhone 6, and frankly my internet connection can't sustain it's 5GHz performance, so I don't have a good way to test. Other devices I'd do an SMB transfer, but the only SMB app I've found, filebrowser, either has some bad overhead, or else iOS/A series processors have some issues handling SMB, because I tend to see about a 15-40% hit on wireless performance. Ex. my wife's iPad 2 can handle around 34Mbps down and 30Mbps up on wireless, but move to SMB and it hits about 20Mbps down and 18Mbpus up, max. My iPhone 5 can hit about 60Mbps up and down on 5GHz, but it maxes at about 35Mbps with an SMB transfer. My wife's iPhone 6 maxes my 75/75 connection (which is actually about 82Mbps down and 65-92Mbps up depending on the time of day) if even vaguely close to hit, but it has trouble hitting 9.5MB/sec down and 9MB/sec up with SMB transfers. There may be an app that'll measure raw IP performance for an iOS device, but I am selectively lazy.

Anyway...when her phone is at the edge of switching over, it is seeing about 45Mbps down and 38Mbps up on 5GHz 80MHz and at switch over it is around 34Mbps down and 28Mbps up.

So, yeah, slower, but I'd also bet that since it is a couple of dB drop needed for the switch over, 5GHz performance probably would have dropped at least a few more Mbps closer to parity.

On top of that, at least when it comes to "handsets" since they are pretty much exclusively single stream, and often not very good single stream, I'd rather they more frequently shuffle themselves off to my less crowded 2.4GHz band (because I share neither band with anyone as I have no nearby networks, 5GHz is what most of my devices tend to choose most of the time). Sure, more performance is more performance, but mostly I am not going to notice if my phone is loading a website at 25Mbps instead of 32Mbps.

I am going to notice if my phone is downloading the website at 32Mbps AND it is crowding my laptop on the 5GHz band while I am trying to transfer 35GB of files as my performance is probably going to take a 30-40% dip.

So really, I'd prefer any device to be on 5GHz ONLY if it has rather good signal strength, so it has the least impact possible on higher bandwidth need devices.

Honestly, a "tri-band" router that can do a GOOD job managing which devices are on which radio, with integrated router directed (and seamless) roaming AND MU:MIMO would be A-mazing. Not going to happen for a LONG time, but it would be cool.

 

[L&LD]

I don't disagree. But it isn't about whether or not more performance is better, it's about whether or not it's necessary. At some point, the increased performance is imperceptible to the average user and is likely incurring cost, whether hard dollars are soft costs in terms of support.

And my point was that even if it didn't seem necessary at the time of purchase, it was in a very short time period vs. the life expectancy of the computer in question.

To put a finer point on it, the customers that opted to buy the minimum performance possible for the tasks they did today ended up replacing the systems years sooner than the ones that spent an additional 25% of that relatively small, one time cost of the hardware.