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Forum Discussion
Band Steering Logic
Hi all.... Currently using same SSID on both bands, 5g on full power/2g on half power and letting clients decide. Anyone have any info on the band steering feature as its only on/off. I know vario...
What do you expect exactly? The WAX220 and it's siblings from the Essentials WiFi Series are stanalone wireless access points. There is no controller (local or cloud based) involved able to evaluate the complete environment. neither letting the APs know about the neigboring APs for updating the list with alternate BSSIDs nor do any kind of agressive (by force disconnnecting and hope the wireless clisnts are smart enough to handle the list provided) client steering.
The 802.11k standard allows clients to request neighbor reports containing information about known neighbor
access points that are candidates for a service set transition. The use of the 802.11k neighbor list can limit the
need for active and passive scanning.
By far not all WiFi client implementations are supporting 802.11k however, especially not the many very basic ones as deployed on IoT products.
Thank you for the response, but my question is exactly as I stated. I'd like to know technically the criteria and logic behind netgears implementation of Band Steering. Does it use use an RSSI threshold (eg....anything with RSSI higher than -70 dBm would get pushed to 2ghz or is it dumb logic and just check if something is is dual band and push it to 5ghz even though the 2ghz signal may be stronger for them to provide a more interference free connection.
Hi b8kedziti,
Band steering lets the access point identify the WiFi devices that are dual-band capable and steer those devices to the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz band of a WiFi network (SSID or VAP). Compared to the 2.4 GHz band, generally more channels and bandwidth are available in the 5 GHz band, causing less interference and allowing for a better user experience.
Band steering also includes 802.11k radio resource management (RRM) and 802.11v WiFi network management. These features affect the network in the following ways:
802.11k RRM is a feature that lets the access point and 802.11k-aware clients dynamically measure the available radio resources. In an 802.11k-enabled network, access points and clients can send neighbor reports, beacon reports, and link measurement reports to each other, allowing 802.11k-aware clients to automatically select the best access point for initial connection and for roaming.
802.11v WiFi network management is a feature that lets the access point steer its WiFi clients to the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz band, based on the access point’s channel load.
Kind regards,
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