S23 Ultra sticks to 80MHz channel

[DaBigMoe]

I have a Galaxy S23 Ultra and a AX86U and I always thought my router had a broken 160Mhz band because my phone would connect at 160mhz after a router reboot but after that it would only stay at 80MHz. Figured it was the router following DFS Protocols or it was just broken.

I just got a new laptop with a Intel AX201 WiFi chip and it connects at 160MHz every single time! Survives reboots and Wi-Fi disconnects and re-connects. Router doesn't switch frequencies at all either so I'm also in a good area. Thankfully this rules out a defective router.

Does anyone with a Galaxy S23 (or any android phone with 160MHz support) suffer the same issue?

 

[PunchCardBoss]

Does anyone with a Galaxy S23 (or any android phone with 160MHz support) suffer the same issue?

S22 Ultra with AX88U.

Yes, this has been observed by many in this forum. But take heart, there are a few things you can do that seem to help a little.

1. Change your Wireless > [5Ghz] > Control Channel from Auto to some fixed value (e.g. 40)
2. Change your Wireless > [5Ghz] >Roaming assistant to a higher value (e.g. 90). OR, turn it off completely to avoid a down-grade to 80Ghz when you leave or return to your LAN area.

These changes will help sustain up to several days of 160Ghz, but eventually your Channel bandwidth will likely down-grade to 80Ghz.

 

[drinkingbird]

I have a Galaxy S23 Ultra and a AX86U and I always thought my router had a broken 160Mhz band because my phone would connect at 160mhz after a router reboot but after that it would only stay at 80MHz. Figured it was the router following DFS Protocols or it was just broken.

I just got a new laptop with a Intel AX201 WiFi chip and it connects at 160MHz every single time! Survives reboots and Wi-Fi disconnects and re-connects. Router doesn't switch frequencies at all either so I'm also in a good area. Thankfully this rules out a defective router.

Does anyone with a Galaxy S23 (or any android phone with 160MHz support) suffer the same issue?

How much bandwidth does your phone need?

Sustaining a 160mhz channel is only at fairly short distances with little interference, once you go outside that, the phone drops down. It may not go back up until you cycle wifi.

But are you actually using >800 megs on your phone? Can the phone even process that much data?

 

[Tech9]

Does anyone with a Galaxy S23 (or any android phone with 160MHz support) suffer the same issue?

Many sufferers in all firmware release threads. Some suffer from Galaxy not holding 160MHz, others suffer from iPhone not supporting 160MHz, a large group suffers from 160MHz simply not working in their area. We collect donations and provide humanitarian aid to victims from time to time.

 

[DaBigMoe]

How much bandwidth does your phone need?

Sustaining a 160mhz channel is only at fairly short distances with little interference, once you go outside that, the phone drops down. It may not go back up until you cycle wifi.

But are you actually using >800 megs on your phone? Can the phone even process that much data?

in all honesty even 200+ mbps is more than enough for a mobile phone. I'm a curious person so I like to try every feature there is for tech so I can have more experience with it. Just by making this post I now more than I did yesterday .

I wanted to test out how much data transfer speeds would change on the 160MHz frequency for internal network because I don't use cloud storage on my devices and store everything to my TrueNas Scale NAS server, which then gets backed up by BackBlaze. If it was a negligible difference than I was gonna move onto a different project.

S22 Ultra with AX88U.

Yes, this has been observed by many in this forum. But take heart, there are a few things you can do that seem to help a little.

1. Change your Wireless > [5Ghz] > Control Channel from Auto to some fixed value (e.g. 40)
2. Change your Wireless > [5Ghz] >Roaming assistant to a higher value (e.g. 90). OR, turn it off completely to avoid a down-grade to 80Ghz when you leave or return to your LAN area.

These changes will help sustain up to several days of 160Ghz, but eventually your Channel bandwidth will likely down-grade to 80Ghz.

I really appreciate this advice! Thank you. I'll give that a go. Its not the end of the world if my phone can't do it. Fun to do though

Many sufferers in all firmware release threads. Some suffer from Galaxy not holding 160MHz, others suffer from iPhone not supporting 160MHz, a large group suffers from 160MHz simply not working in their area. We collect donations and provide humanitarian aid to victims from time to time.

Clearly, the obvious solution to this is to stop donating humanitarian aid to those victims and start donating large areas of land with no interference, a fiber line, and no airports in a 25 mile radius

 

[drinkingbird]

in all honesty even 200+ mbps is more than enough for a mobile phone. I'm a curious person so I like to try every feature there is for tech so I can have more experience with it. Just by making this post I now more than I did yesterday .

I wanted to test out how much data transfer speeds would change on the 160MHz frequency for internal network because I don't use cloud storage on my devices and store everything to my TrueNas Scale NAS server, which then gets backed up by BackBlaze. If it was a negligible difference than I was gonna move onto a different project.

Actually the real question is how much high frequency RF do you want in your pocket next to your balls or held up next to your brain. In reality, having 160 ability for your computers with the phone only connecting at 80 (or heck, even 40) may be the best thing for your vital parts.

80Mhz AX can do 800 to 900 mbits/sec easily. Most find 160 to just be problematic.

 

[Tech9]

start donating large areas of land with no interference

No, we're organizing interference elimination squad instead. More fun and our customer doesn't have to relocate.

 

[sfx2000]

on the client side there is no hard/fast rule that says a device needs to stay in a certain radio configuration.

Mobiles will dynamically allocate both spectral bandwidth and spatial streams based on demand - and when idle, to conserve power, they will back down - they're only required to monitor and use the primary/control channel - the reset of the time, it's really up to the device driver for the wifi chipset in the device.

This also happens based on error rates detected in traffic - they will flex on the MCS rates, along with streams and bandwidth to reduce retransmission of packets to improve performance and latency (thing wifi calling for example), and again, this is all driven by developer defined profiles in the chipset firmware (transparent to android and the linux kernel).

I've seen iphone 14's go all the way down to a single stream/20 MHz channel in idle state.

In other words, don't worry about it - the phone is going to perform as best as it needs to and using it's resources accordingly.

In other words, it's not a bug, it's a feature...

can't compare a desktop/laptop adapter to the chipset in a phone, they are built to different requirements and use cases...

 

[Jbennett360]

My Fibre has just been updated to 900/180.

Same issue really with the base S23. Just doesn't seem to want to latch onto 160mhz when my laptop did.

If I leave the router at;
80mhz
channel 36

Phone shows:
PHY rate 1.2gbps
Signal -45dBm

Speed tests are coming in around 550 to 600 down and 185 up.

Not sure if that's right? Thought the S23 would be capable of a higher download?

 

[degrub]

Link rate does not equate to throughput. That depends on the receiver and transmitter and the wireless environment.

 

[drinkingbird]

My Fibre has just been updated to 900/180.

Same issue really with the base S23. Just doesn't seem to want to latch onto 160mhz when my laptop did.

If I leave the router at;
80mhz
channel 36

Phone shows:
PHY rate 1.2gbps
Signal -45dBm

Speed tests are coming in around 550 to 600 down and 185 up.

Not sure if that's right? Thought the S23 would be capable of a higher download?

Perfectly fine for a phone (upload is on the low side but that is not unusual, hard for it to generate that many packets). You may get better results with the speedtest.net app if that isn't what you're already using. What are you downloading on your phone that needs more anyway?

Max from 1.2G phy rate is about 800, maybe a bit more, but that requires the CPU and wireless horsepower to be able to handle it, which even high end phones will struggle with.

EDIT sorry just realized your upload is capped by ISP speed, so you're right about where you should be.