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Qualcomm 6900 and Dual Band Simultaneous - how to use it?

D

donzoomik

New Around Here
I have a laptop with Qualcomm 6900 chipset that supposedly supports this "Dual Band Simultaneous" that sounds like Pre-MLO. Even the adapter advertises itself as "Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 Wi-Fi 6E Dual Band Simultaneous (DBS) WiFiCx Network Adapter".
There's a thread here that discusses it a bit (https://www.snbforums.com/threads/wi-fi-6-release-2-revealed.76608/) but no details how it is supposed to work in practice.

Now, I have no idea how to make it work in practice., in Windows 11 settings I only ever see one frequency used. I have a WiFi 7 AP (previously WiFi 6) with all frequencies having the same SSID and parameters but I can't see any way to make it connect.

Windows can apparently see the secondary interface but it just sits there:
Code: 
netsh wlan show interfaces

There are 2 interfaces on the system:

    Name                   : Wi-Fi
    Description            : Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 Wi-Fi 6E Dual Band Simultaneous (DBS) WiFiCx Network Adapter
    GUID                   : c6d244da-6fd3-4634-9ed1-46f98a704d18
    Physical address       : 8c:3b:4a:55:da:f8
    Interface type         : Primary
    State                  : connected
    SSID                   : Zmk-W7
    AP BSSID               : 60:cf:84:4d:ef:d9
         Colocated APs:    : 9
            MldID : 0, LinkID: 1, BSSID: 60:cf:84:4d:ef:d4,  Band: 5 GHz,  Channel: 36
            MldID : 1, LinkID: 1, BSSID: 72:cf:84:4d:ef:d5,  Band: 5 GHz,  Channel: 36
            MldID : 0, LinkID: 2, BSSID: 60:cf:84:4d:ef:d0,  Band: 2.4 GHz,  Channel: 13
            MldID : 1, LinkID: 2, BSSID: ca:cf:84:4d:ef:d1,  Band: 2.4 GHz,  Channel: 13
            MldID : 1, LinkID: 0, BSSID: 72:cf:84:4d:ef:d6,  Band: 5 GHz,  Channel: 36
            MldID : 1, LinkID: 0, BSSID: ca:cf:84:4d:ef:d3,  Band: 2.4 GHz,  Channel: 13
            MldID : 1, LinkID: 0, BSSID: ca:cf:84:4d:ef:d2,  Band: 2.4 GHz,  Channel: 13
            MldID : 1, LinkID: 0, BSSID: 60:cf:84:4d:ef:d8,  Band: 6 GHz,  Channel: 37
            MldID : 1, LinkID: 0, BSSID: 60:cf:84:4d:ef:da,  Band: 6 GHz,  Channel: 37
    Band                   : 6 GHz
    Channel                : 37
    Connected Akm-cipher   : [ akm = 00-0f-ac:08, cipher =  00-0f-ac:04 ]
    Network type           : Infrastructure
    Radio type             : 802.11ax
    Authentication         : WPA3-Personal  (H2E)
    Cipher                 : CCMP
    Connection mode        : Auto Connect
    Receive rate (Mbps)    : 2401.9
    Transmit rate (Mbps)   : 2401.9
    Signal                 : 100%
    Profile                : Zmk-W7
    QoS MSCS Configured         : 0
    QoS Map Configured          : 0
    QoS Map Allowed by Policy   : 0

    Name                   : Wi-Fi 3
    Description            : Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 Wi-Fi 6E Dual Band Simultaneous (DBS) WiFiCx Network Adapter #3
    GUID                   : 0071bc08-6d54-4e62-9615-33cc63c08bde
    Physical address       : 8e:3b:4a:55:da:f8
    Interface type         : Secondary
    Primary interface      : Wi-Fi
    State                  : disconnected
    Radio status           : Hardware On
                             Software On

Manual connect options do not work:
Code: 
netsh wlan connect name=Zmk-W7 ssid=Zmk-W7 interface="Wi-Fi 3"
There is no such wireless interface on the system.

netsh wlan connect name=Zmk-W7 ssid=Zmk-W7 interface="Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 Wi-Fi 6E Dual Band Simultaneous (DBS) WiFiCx Network Adapter #3"
There is no such wireless interface on the system.

Any idea how to make it work?
 
Last edited:
donzoomik said:
I have a laptop with Qualcomm 6900 chipset that supposedly supports this "Dual Band Simultaneous" that sounds like Pre-MLO. Even the adapter advertises itself as "Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 Wi-Fi 6E Dual Band Simultaneous (DBS) WiFiCx Network Adapter".
There's a thread here that discusses it a bit (https://www.snbforums.com/threads/wi-fi-6-release-2-revealed.76608/) but no details how it is supposed to work in practice.

Now, I have no idea how to make it work in practice., in Windows 11 settings I only ever see one frequency used. I have a WiFi 7 AP (previously WiFi 6) with all frequencies having the same SSID and parameters but I can't see any way to make it connect.
Click to expand...

It's a proprietary implementation, pre-11be MLO, but similar - it's entirely client based, so it should work with any vendor AP's...

It configures two independent connections - each has its own IP and Connection ID (on the AP side)

i have not personally observed these cards in Windows, but in Android they do tend to work pretty well...

For Windows - you may not have everything you need - it's more than just a device driver...

According to my contact over at QC, there SW that is needed outside of the basic Windows WiFi connector - the OEM should have downloads for the package - it's not available for public download from Qualcomm without NDA and a business agreement.

hope this helps
 
That's intereting. My OEM Lenovo has no sign of such utility. I also went over driver packages for Dell and HP as well and there's only the driver, no extra utilities.
When I was researching the topic, I read about Intel AX411's similar functionality that had to be licensed by OEM. I wonder if DBS is similarly licensed but no OEM has done it...

Do you happen to know the name of this software package so I know what I'm looking for?
 
Last edited:
see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/nativewifi/dual-sta-query-config

By default, Windows connects only on the primary STA interface. Windows will connect on the secondary STA interface only if all of the following conditions are met:

The driver indicates support for secondary STA interfaces in its capabilities.
There's no policy preventing secondary STA connectivity.
There's at least one application that has called the WlanSetInterface with the wlan_intf_opcode_secondary_sta_synchronized_connections opcode with the parameter set to TRUE.
 
Whoa, that's a good reference.

I used the sample to to build some simple application that sets the flags and waits forever.
Indeed the second interface connects and looks usable by at least applications that explicitly bind to secondary interface.

github.com

GitHub - DonZoomik/DualSTA

Contribute to DonZoomik/DualSTA development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com github.com

Code: 
netsh wlan show interfaces

There are 2 interfaces on the system:

    Name                   : Wi-Fi
    Description            : Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 Wi-Fi 6E Dual Band Simultaneous (DBS) WiFiCx Network Adapter
    GUID                   : c6d244da-6fd3-4634-9ed1-46f98a704d18
    Physical address       : 8c:3b:4a:55:da:f8
    Interface type         : Primary
    State                  : connected
    SSID                   : Zmk-W7
    AP BSSID               : 72:cf:84:4d:ef:d5
         Colocated APs:    : 4
            MldID : 0, LinkID: 0, BSSID: 60:cf:84:4d:ef:da,  Band: 6 GHz,  Channel: 5
            MldID : 0, LinkID: 0, BSSID: 60:cf:84:4d:ef:d9,  Band: 6 GHz,  Channel: 5
            MldID : 1, LinkID: 0, BSSID: 60:cf:84:4d:ef:d8,  Band: 6 GHz,  Channel: 5
            MldID : 0, LinkID: 2, BSSID: ca:cf:84:4d:ef:d1,  Band: 2.4 GHz,  Channel: 5
    Band                   : 5 GHz
    Channel                : 36
    Connected Akm-cipher   : [ akm = 00-0f-ac:08, cipher =  00-0f-ac:04 ]
    Network type           : Infrastructure
    Radio type             : 802.11ax
    Authentication         : WPA3-Personal  (H2E)
    Cipher                 : CCMP
    Connection mode        : Profile
    Receive rate (Mbps)    : 2401.9
    Transmit rate (Mbps)   : 2401.9
    Signal                 : 74%
    Profile                : Zmk-W7
    QoS MSCS Configured         : 0
    QoS Map Configured          : 0
    QoS Map Allowed by Policy   : 0

    Name                   : Wi-Fi 3
    Description            : Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 Wi-Fi 6E Dual Band Simultaneous (DBS) WiFiCx Network Adapter #3
    GUID                   : 0071bc08-6d54-4e62-9615-33cc63c08bde
    Physical address       : 8e:3b:4a:55:da:f8
    Interface type         : Secondary
    Primary interface      : Wi-Fi
    State                  : connected
    SSID                   : Zmk-W7
    AP BSSID               : ca:cf:84:4d:ef:d1
    Band                   : 2.4 GHz
    Channel                : 5
    Connected Akm-cipher   : [ akm = 00-0f-ac:08, cipher =  00-0f-ac:04 ]
    Network type           : Infrastructure
    Radio type             : 802.11ax
    Authentication         : WPA3-Personal  (H2E)
    Cipher                 : CCMP
    Connection mode        : Profile
    Receive rate (Mbps)    : 286.8
    Transmit rate (Mbps)   : 286.8
    Signal                 : 98%
    QoS MSCS Configured         : 0
    QoS Map Configured          : 0
    QoS Map Allowed by Policy   : 0
   
   
Get-NetIPAddress|?{$_.interfacealias -match 'wi-fi' -and $_.prefixorigin -eq 'dhcp'}|select ipaddress,interfacealias

ipaddress      interfacealias
---------      --------------
192.168.64.243 Wi-Fi 3
192.168.64.71  Wi-Fi



ping -S 192.168.64.243 snbforums.com

Pinging snbforums.com [45.77.76.174] from 192.168.64.243 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 45.77.76.174: bytes=32 time=102ms TTL=250
Reply from 45.77.76.174: bytes=32 time=105ms TTL=250
Reply from 45.77.76.174: bytes=32 time=104ms TTL=250
Reply from 45.77.76.174: bytes=32 time=102ms TTL=250

Ping statistics for 45.77.76.174:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 102ms, Maximum = 105ms, Average = 103ms
 
Last edited:
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