FloridaMatt
New Around Here
For those of you fighting the issue of 5ghz problems -- particularly pauses and disconnects -- here's another thing to look for: Do you have a Fire TV that's connected via wifi? I did (and still do, but after applying a workaround).
Fire TV uses a function called WiFi Direct to communicate with its remote. That by itself isn't particularly a problem, but Fire TV, like a number of other devices using WiFi Direct, periodically broadcasts its SSID, either with or without a visible name. Since it comes and goes you may not see it in a list of available networks. Install a wifi analyzer app on your phone, and you will see it.
The problem isn't even so much the fact that these broadcasts are being done, but that Fire TV developers made an, uh, let's say questionable choice in implementation. Fire TV chooses to do its SSID broadcasts on the same channel as the wifi network your router is using. In other words, quite a few times a minute it's interfering with your network. You can reconfig the router to change channels, and the Fire TV will change channels along with it.
In the "oh, THAT's cute" category, if the router is set to auto channel selection, and the Fire TV is close enough to the router, the router can really disrupt things by constantly changing channels in response to seeing the interference.
This does not happen on an ethernet-wired Fire TV. Oh, the SSID broadcasts are still there, but they don't move around so the router (or you) can pick a non-conflicting channel.
My quick and dirty workaround on my RT-AC86U relied on the case that all but one of my devices could use 5ghz. So I turned off smart connect, and gave my 2.4ghz channel a different SSID. This allowed me to force the Fire TV to the 2.4ghz band. And for good measure I set the bandwidth to 40 so the Fire TV's broadcasts matched less bandwidth.
I've grumbled to amazon about all this, of course, but if anyone else finds the Fire TV to be their 5ghz problem, I'll encourage you to complain to them as well. You may need to use the words "WiFi Direct" until they recognize what you are talking about.
Anyway, hope this helps someone.
Fire TV uses a function called WiFi Direct to communicate with its remote. That by itself isn't particularly a problem, but Fire TV, like a number of other devices using WiFi Direct, periodically broadcasts its SSID, either with or without a visible name. Since it comes and goes you may not see it in a list of available networks. Install a wifi analyzer app on your phone, and you will see it.
The problem isn't even so much the fact that these broadcasts are being done, but that Fire TV developers made an, uh, let's say questionable choice in implementation. Fire TV chooses to do its SSID broadcasts on the same channel as the wifi network your router is using. In other words, quite a few times a minute it's interfering with your network. You can reconfig the router to change channels, and the Fire TV will change channels along with it.
In the "oh, THAT's cute" category, if the router is set to auto channel selection, and the Fire TV is close enough to the router, the router can really disrupt things by constantly changing channels in response to seeing the interference.
This does not happen on an ethernet-wired Fire TV. Oh, the SSID broadcasts are still there, but they don't move around so the router (or you) can pick a non-conflicting channel.
My quick and dirty workaround on my RT-AC86U relied on the case that all but one of my devices could use 5ghz. So I turned off smart connect, and gave my 2.4ghz channel a different SSID. This allowed me to force the Fire TV to the 2.4ghz band. And for good measure I set the bandwidth to 40 so the Fire TV's broadcasts matched less bandwidth.
I've grumbled to amazon about all this, of course, but if anyone else finds the Fire TV to be their 5ghz problem, I'll encourage you to complain to them as well. You may need to use the words "WiFi Direct" until they recognize what you are talking about.
Anyway, hope this helps someone.