RBR750 provides only 2.4ghz to my Galaxy S10 when in the bedroom

I'm wanting to see first if there is a problem at the RBS. I'm also wondering why the devices are picking the RBR signal vs the RBS if the RBS is closer to these devices. Maybe a problem with just the RBS not working right. 

Gotchya. It's all so haphazard. When I check to see what devices are connected to what, all of them between all four floors say that they are connected to the router on the second floor. Also, there are devices such as my phone and my IoT devices that are randomly left off from the list. Other times, the devices on the floor with the attic RBS, they all connect fine. I'll try and test a few devices again up there to make sure that they roam to that RBS just to ake sure that one is at least functioning.

Be carefull or roaming. Some devices don't roam well. Why I ask users to turn OFF the wifi radio on the decices for 5 seconds, move hear the RBS or RBR to test, then turn on the wifi radio. This should force the device to pick the nearest signal. 

I was speaking in reference to my phone. Wouldn't that defeat the purpose if a device such as my phone didn't switch to the new satellite? Otherwise, I'm not quite sure what the point of a mesh network is.

It's up to wifi devices to pick and choose which signal they connect too. MESH wifi only provides the platform or stage to connect too. 

Again this is just troubleshooting this problem. 

The S10 had (about a year ago at least) some bad reputation for sticking to the 2.4 GHz BSSID ignoring the stronger and faster 5 GHz BSSIDs announced while working with various consumer Mesh resp. business class 802.11k/v/r WiFi systems from various vendors. Effects varied a little bit depending on optimisation features anybled on the infrastructure. One would assume Sammy would have addressed these problems sitting down on the WiFi radio firmware and driver level with Android 10 (Q) on top of it in the meantime.

Sorry, it's out of my comfort zone - lack of enough current experience on the various S10 models - to provide some binding feedback.

When near to the satellite, and quickly disable and re-enable the WiFi again, will it pick up the 5 GHz BSSID?

Use the WiFi Analyzer to see the current BSSID the mobile is connected to.

While in the bedroom, what does the WiFi Analyzer show (with "Group mode for list" ticked) for the SSID and all the BSSIDs on open the SSID "tree"? Will it see the 5GHz and the other 2.4 GHz BSSIDs?

Need to address two things:

1. My test that I described before was a good idea, because the RBS's needed to be rebooted. Once I did that, my phone seamlessly navigated from one point to the next, instantly. We've confirmed that the RBS is not the issue.

2. Good points that you brought up, schumaku. It's just as I thought, where there is a fine dBm line that Netgear is making (or maybe the S10 is making, as well as my iPhone 11), deciding if it should be on 2.4ghz or 5ghz. The RBR, which is 7m away according to Wifi Analyzer, is at -64dBm with my bedroom door shut, on channel 48. The RBS above me is 17m away, and -72dBm. I think that basically the threshold is -60dBm, since it remained connected on the 2.4ghz band at -58dBm.

With the above information, either the RBR or the phones (both, mind you) are making the conscious decision of prefering 2.4ghz at that point, which can be an abysmal speed. Regardless of the push/pull here as to what is dictating what (I suspect both phones are preferring the 2.4ghz and both have that -60dBm threshold for continuing to accept 5ghz), my problem unfortunately reminas the same.

When I had the 5ghz DEDICATED band, it may have been -64dBm as well, but it was far faster than this (as my speed tests prove, anywhere from 50-70mbps with my ISP connectivity), as opposed to 2-7mbps (if that) when it makes the decision to hop on 2.4ghz instead.

If nothing else, possibly this is another reasoning why people may want split SSIDs, assuming that is indeed the phones making the decision to change to 2.4ghz due to whatever hardcoded values dictate the switch.

Thoughts?

Do does the phone still pick 2.4ghz if you turn down the power out put on the RBR to 25% and your closer to the RBS? 

I would try some placement with the RBS then. Seems like you phone likes 2.4ghz as well. Something you might get with Samsung about and see if there is any help there. 

Unfortunately, it's the same issue with the iPhone 11, so it doesn't sound like an issue isolated to one phone manufacturer, but rather, a standard dBm cut-off as I was saying before. 

Seriously though, having the ability to split the SSID is kind of my last hope here, given that dBm cut-off seems to be the issue (given all prior provided evidence).

You mentioned initially that your old router provided certain 5 GHz coverage, while the Orbi AX satellites don't make it to the bedroom.

The point here (well, under FCC regulations) is that your old router most likely operated on the U-NII-1 band where the 5 GHz AP radio was operating on up to 1 W. To reach reasonable wireless backhaul coverage and throughput in a building, Netgear does reserve this band for the wireless backhaul. The higher channels used for the Orbi AX fronthaul on U-NII-2A and U-NII-2C allow 200 mW only. This is a loss of over 20dB...

The only answer to this would be deploying smaller cell sizes resp. deploy more satellites - not cripple the Mesh.

Disagree.

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testuserguy wrote:
I already got it to work last night, and the signal was great and the speeds were again, similar to my old Netgear.

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Speed and link quality would be much better 8-)

Interesting - if my mobiles fall-over to 2.4 GHz here (also around the -60dB area) I still get 10...20 Mb/s under poor conditions (many other active 2.4 GHz networks, visible and invisible ones). But I do admit not all the [100% wired] APs are WiFi 6, and it's not Orbi / Orbi AX - it's a Netgear Insight managed WLAN environment.

Let us know if you get that config to persist thru a reboot or power cycle. 

Glad you got it working. FYI, this un-offcial work around may break on next FW update, something to be aware of.

Enjoy. 

Thanks! I'll make sure not to update it :) I assume it won't auto-update since that would mean downtime. I may modify the JScript for the router to display both SSIDs in the web portal for fun.

NG may push FW. So you'll need to keep an eye on it. When NG posts new FW to there auto update servers, a notification will be seen on the RBRs web page, then sometimes you won't and the system will just udpate on it's own. 

Good to know, thanks. Looks like a new firewall rule will be going up. :)

:smileywink: