Orbi - why can't we change channels on satellites?

---

molec wrote:

---

...........

This is circualar reasoning? WHY are the satellites acting as Repeaters/Extenders? It's by design choice of Netgear, I assume. 

---

Anyone who says that Orbi is a repeater/extender does not know how Orbi works. It's simply not a correct statement.

The orbi Satellites work as access points (APs) in a mesh network and the Orbi Router is the main controller which manages the whole network and controls the roaming of devices between the APs.

This is the main idea of all mesh systems. Some vendors chose to have different channels for every AP but Orbi chose to have one single channel for every band. 

The main reason -I think- why Netgear chose this option is to reduce the number of roaming events. Orbi is made for home users and -usually- you will have multiple APs in a relatevely small area so the overlap between the APs is -usually- quite big and therefore devices will keep hopping between the APs if they have different channels (because devices will keep comparing the levels of the signals between the 2 bands of the APs and hop to the AP which has higher level) which will affect the performance of mainly the mobile devices (and consequently the battery life of the devices) and also the performance of the whole netwrork.

By choosing to use the same channel the devices will not need to do too many roaming activities.

On the other hand, in enterprise solutions, the AP's are usually assigned different channels because usually a radio planning is done and the coverage is well studied in advace to make sure the overlap is just enough to cover the whole enterprise.

It's very simple for Netgear to set a channel for every band in Orbi. In fact I tried to set a channel for every satellite in my Orbi (using telnet commands) and had it for couple of hours and I noticed the amount of roamings the devices needed to do. In certain locations of the home one of my static devices made up to 3 roamings per minute while not moving!

So in summary, assigning channels for every AP is good only when you have good radio planning, but otherwise having one single channel is much more effective.

I believe that Netgear can make this as configurable settings, which will mainly benefit those who have big areas to cover, but can give negative impact for people who will use this functionality without enough radio knowledge and tools.