Insight from Google Fiber - WiFi Performance

[coxhaus]

Very nice. Thanks for the update.

 

[Easy Rhino]

Being throttled by one band of 'other' routers in the neighborhood is always better (for everyone) than being throttled by two bands full of them.

Because my suburb is not very since, I only just witnessed this for the first time in the wild recently at my inlaw's condo complex. Their needs are simple and they had a 2.4Ghz only router. But a wifi scan showed about 7-12 other AP's on each band from other condos. So sometimes the internet would truly get unusable. TV shows stop streaming, laptop can't open website, etc. And it would come and go even with consistent router and client settings.

Like, I thought it was an urban legend but it was real.

The main fix was to get them a router that did 5ghz and get most devices on that. And then park the 2.4ghz on a single channel instead of relying on linksys auto select.

 

[thiggins]

@coxhaus What prompted your necro post?

 

[coxhaus]

@coxhaus What prompted your necro post?

Old age. A lot of what he is reporting I have discovered using a single SSID for dual bands and not use band steering. Also, more APs with lower power make for a better overall wireless system than more power in 1 unit.

I think 5GHz is a much better solution for an apartment than 2.4 GHz. 5GHz is range limited and does not penetrate walls like 2.4 GHz. So, there is less contention in the wireless channel.

 

[sfx2000]

On the other hand, equipment manufacturers apparently don't adhere to the 1/6/11 rule. I've seen routers come up on channel 4 (or others) when left to auto select a channel.

Interesting to see this over in 2.4GHz these days - 1, 4, 8, 11 for the CPE devices from the carriers/operators - and there it does seem to have some rhythm around the channel auto selections - carrier CPE are more dynamic here, looking for a good channel.

And some stick to 40Mhz channels, which really isn't a problem other than observing a beacon suggesting as such...

I suppose the best support from the OEM's is to disable 11b legacy - as this triggers a whole lot of protection mechanisms for all 2.4Ghz devices that are 11n/ax/be native...