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Forum Discussion
Orbi mesh want 5Ghz only
I purchased an Orbi mesh system (RBK50 which comes with one satellite and one router). It works brilliantly when my devices are on 5GHz and I get my full internet speed. Sometimes, however, my devi...
CrimpOn the band a device is connected to shows up on both the application and the web interface where you click on 'devices connected'. It displays what router or satellite they are connected to as well as what channel. My 2.4 Ghz speeds are actually much lower than what i quoted earlier, more around 30 MB/s where as 5gGHz I get 300 Mb/s no problem (same room this is). For me, the speed difference is noticeable enough hencewhy i would really like to be able to force a 5 GHz connection. The 2.4GHz band in my area is way too congested and hencewhy in my previous setup with my old router, I had it split the SSIDs so I connected my devices all to the 5 Ghz band.
With the ORBI, II verified the devices were actually connected to the band the ORBI interface was showing as I ran speed tests. When my mobile was showing as connected to the 5 GHz network on the orbi interface, i got a download speed of 360 Mb/s and upload of around 35 Mb/s. A few minutes later, i checked again and the interface showed it was connected to 2.4Ghz. I quickly ran another speedtest whilst the interface was displaying it was on this band and sure enough, the download speed was 31 Mb/s. If i could simply disable the 2.4Ghz band, that would be such a simple solution. I feel that netgear should have this option in the advanced settings at least for users who do want it disabled. It's not ike it would interfere with the backhaul as that is done on a separte 5 Ghz channel anyway. Apparently, users could do this in previous versions of the firmware but now this is not possible.
Its a fantastic system, but i do not like how it handles the 2.4 Ghz/5Ghz switching, I want to decide and be in control what band my devices connect to and i don't think the system is quite there yet in terms of efficiency of selecting a band for optimal speeds.
Thank you anyway sir for your kind suggestion of unchecking the broadcast SSID box for the 2.4Ghz signal and trying to force a 5 Ghz connection that way. I very much appreciate the time you took on advising me.
Thanks for confirming. This gives me direction for experimenting. I think there is an internet standard where an access point tells a device, "I think you would be better off switching to (this other access point)."
Since you want to avoid the 2.4G band, you can also turn the transmit power down as far as it will go on the 2.4G channel. Maybe that will slow down this "switching".