Should I use the same SSID for my 2.4 and 5?
This thread has been locked for further replies. You can start a new thread to share your ideas or ask questions.Should I use the same SSID for my 2.4 and 5?
This thread has been locked for further replies. You can start a new thread to share your ideas or ask questions.
I have several EAP245s, 1 new smaller EAP610, and a new EAP615 wall. Anyway, what do people ususally do with their SSID settings of the 2.4 and 5? Do they make a different SSID for 2.4 and the 5?
I have and OC200 that controls all of my Omada switches, router, and EAPs.
Should I use force-disassociation? My clients tend to stay with something in the other part of the house, even when I'm right next to the other EAP many times.
Is there a thread that I can find that talks about proper settings of the SSID and the setting the proper EAP powers?
I'm trying to fine tune as much as possible.
Thanks.
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I agree with this, also never had an issue with the same SSID and it does make things a lot easier to manage!
Have you enabled both Fast Roaming and AI Roaming? Ai roaming might help if the clients are not doing it themselves... Force Disassocation is a thing to be used sparingly as its a total kick off and reconnect (not a roam) therefore the device connection will be terminated.
This only takes effect should the device not action / reply to the roaming command and from my experience... this tends to be older devices (B G and early N) most new devices roam when told to do so.
I have this enabled on a few sites, rarely if ever gets invoked.. example is I have one client who has a printer (REALLY OLD) that is 2.4ghz WiFi and it sometimes connects to the most random far away APs. The controller tells it to roam and it doesnt do it, there kicks it off. Printer reconnects and hopefully to better AP, failing that kick and repeat again. It wont do it for weeks then, you get a flurry of kicks and reconnects with a few seconds. Hopefully that helps?
In terms of channel and power, I would leave this to the controller. Ultimately most airspace is now congested in some way with other networks. You will spend too much time fiddling to get it right for yourself, then your neighbour moves something and its all messed again. Just let the controller do its job automatically, its fairly decent in honesty.
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Hey
In terms of 2.4ghz only channels 1 6 and 11 don't interfere, therefore despite fing recommending 9/10 using it would interfere with 6 and 11. Honestly its not going to be any benefit to you setting this channel.
One of the big issues in nearly all WiFi installs is the 2.4 spectrum, unless you live on Mars its gonna be saturated. You could choose 11 as your channel because its likely the best of a bad bunch (only shared with 1 SSID and not fighting 4) but the reason I recommend to leave 2.4ghz on auto selection is the frequency hopping.
All ISP routers have a setting that auto changes channel if it detects interference, its a PAIN!! If you decide to use 11 as its best today, your neighbours may hop to 7 tomorrow and mess up your selection. If you want my opinion, just let the controller hop you about automatically; its never going to be perfect so expect to see the airspace congested at the best of times, there really is not a lot you can do about this sadly.
5ghz is a different beast, its not so congested and has a lot more airspace to work with so channel sharing isn't a big issue. Most ISP routers use 36-48 for their 5ghz channels, these are known as the UNNI-1 channels and are the most commonly used worldwide. Once you go past 52 its into DFS and some regions restrict this, you may also have Radar detection in this range.
Personally I use 52 and 104 for my channels as I like "clean air" and there is no one else on them, i also don't get radar detection. Try 52 first and should radar be detected, jump up 4 channels and retry
Depending on where you live this is trial and error, however there is nothing wrong with 36-48 for daily use as its got plenty of space in most occasions.
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I keep the same SSID. The default settings on my OC200 seem to auto-distribute my clients across the 5.8G and 2.4G bands pretty evenly. I've basically never had any negative issues doing this.
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I agree with this, also never had an issue with the same SSID and it does make things a lot easier to manage!
Have you enabled both Fast Roaming and AI Roaming? Ai roaming might help if the clients are not doing it themselves... Force Disassocation is a thing to be used sparingly as its a total kick off and reconnect (not a roam) therefore the device connection will be terminated.
This only takes effect should the device not action / reply to the roaming command and from my experience... this tends to be older devices (B G and early N) most new devices roam when told to do so.
I have this enabled on a few sites, rarely if ever gets invoked.. example is I have one client who has a printer (REALLY OLD) that is 2.4ghz WiFi and it sometimes connects to the most random far away APs. The controller tells it to roam and it doesnt do it, there kicks it off. Printer reconnects and hopefully to better AP, failing that kick and repeat again. It wont do it for weeks then, you get a flurry of kicks and reconnects with a few seconds. Hopefully that helps?
In terms of channel and power, I would leave this to the controller. Ultimately most airspace is now congested in some way with other networks. You will spend too much time fiddling to get it right for yourself, then your neighbour moves something and its all messed again. Just let the controller do its job automatically, its fairly decent in honesty.
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@Philbert Okay, guys, thanks. I will leave it on the same SSID. I was just reading an article talking about using different SSIDs for both, but I would rather keep it the same.
So, for channel power, just leave it alone and let the controller do the work. Auto for channel and power. Will do. I'll make sure it is all on auto. Thanks again.
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Depending on your application, you MAY wish to fix the channel. I do for the 5.8G channel I use for meshing, as some channels permit higher power output than others ;)
Also, I highly recommend you limit all your 2.4G radios to 20Mhz channel, unless you live on a ranch in Montana or own your own island somewhere.
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@d0ugmac1 Well, now I'm more confused. You are now saying don't do auto, but use 20MHz for the 2.4 channel. 
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For 2.4G
I'm suggesting you fix the Channel Width, but let it Auto-channel select (I fix the 2.4G channels because I know my local radio geography) and I'd suggest keeping it at High power
for 5.8G, I suggest you leave the Channel Width on Auto, but only if you know what you're doing! I fix the channel to a frequency band that allows the highest output power and of course, leave the power at high
Now in the above, I made sure that channels 149, 153, 157 and 161 were free and clear, because in my country I can put out 1W on these channels without a license (which is 4x more power than say on channel 38). I then selected 149 as my base channel because if I shift from a 20Mhz channel to 40Mhz Channel Width, I'd be using 149+153 and if I shift to 80Mhz I'd be using 149+153+157+161...which you can't do if your base channel is 161 for instance. If those channels are noisy, you pick the best one and fix your Channel Width to 20Mhz.
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@d0ugmac1 So you're saying put 20 in for the channel width, but put in Auto for channel. You don't have it set at auto.
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If you manually set it for HIGH, its the same as AUTO
AUTO will start at HIGH and only lower if it detects collisions / cross pathing / reflection etc.
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@d0ugmac1 I don't know if this makes any difference or not, but I was using my wifi intensity app and Fing to show me channel usage.
What I found out about my neighbors wifi channels and frequency was
2.4 - 4 places had channel 1 with 2412, 6 places had channel 6 with 2437, and 1 place had 11 with 2462.
5 - 2 places had channel 44 with 5220, and 1 had 132 with 5660.
Fing said that channels 9, 10, and 11 were good and 52, 56, 60, 64, 100, 104, 108, 112, 116, 120, 140, 149, 153 ,157, 161, 165 were good.
Is this worth any hill of beans or not?
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