How is fibre bandwidth shared in an apartment block?

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lchiu7

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#2616422 4-Dec-2020 18:09

cyril7:
If people used proper routers with proper wifi it would band steer them to 5GHz. Glad to see you were able to enlighten this chap.

Cyril

Well just using the router provided by the ISP. I doubt if it's that sophisticated. If I just turned off the 2.4 GHz band I wonder how many devices would stop working?

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nztim

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#2616426 4-Dec-2020 18:12

lchiu7:
cyril7:
If people used proper routers with proper wifi it would band steer them to 5GHz. Glad to see you were able to enlighten this chap.

Cyril

Well just using the router provided by the ISP. I doubt if it's that sophisticated. If I just turned off the 2.4 GHz band I wonder how many devices would stop working?

Only one way to find out :)

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CcMaN

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#2616790 5-Dec-2020 21:28

cyril7:

If people used proper routers with proper wifi it would band steer them to 5GHz. Glad to see you were able to enlighten this chap.

Cyril

The problem is, the ISP provided routers usually have two SSID's (e.g. Spark and Spark_5G) or something similar. I spoke to someone who wasn't that technical who thought the 5G meant the 5G mobile network not 5Ghz WiFi as most users don't really know (or should need to know) the difference between 2.4Ghz WiFi and 5Ghz WiFi. Also have people say "Well the 5G network doesn't reach my garage/office/etc".

Most of the 2020 ISP provided routers can handle band steering fine, don't know why they still insist on splitting the SSID. Make it easy for the user to have a good experience by just plug and play and it works, and it would probably fix a tonne of "I'm only getting 2mbit" problems...

sbiddle

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#2616853 6-Dec-2020 08:31

Band steering isn't always the perfect solution to a problem, especially in an environment where clients may not all have LOS coverage. Apple devices in particular aren't always happy with being forced to change bands.

For devices in the same room as an AP providing power levels are set appropriately (ie 2.4 turned down by say -6dB to ensure similar coverage) than it can do a good job of ensuring that devices that are dual band capable will be forced onto 5GHz. When you're relying on an environment where devices may not be in the same room (ie trying to cover a whole house) then this can result in issues.

lchiu7

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#2617129 6-Dec-2020 20:47

I just set two SSIDs one for 5GHz and one for 2.4GHz and enourage guests to use the 5GHz.

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allio

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#2617136 6-Dec-2020 21:41

I've never had good luck with band steering. Many devices (including ones that should know better, like laptops) end up on 2.4 after half an hour or so and never go back. I'm back on separate SSIDs again - one 2.4 + 5 which I use for any non-bandwidth critical devices or anything likely to travel out of range of the 5Ghz signal, and one 5 only which I use for laptops. I like this better than simply having 2.4 and 5 because guests always ended up picking 2.4.

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cyril7

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#2617185 7-Dec-2020 07:24

Agree re band steering its a work around solution that is not perfect. But the main thing I was getting at is to better ensure 5g use, either make both band ssid's and keys the same, or at least enrol devices on both bands.

Apple devices will always choose 5g if available and over a certain level threshold, android is a bit more of a lottery.

Cyril

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