How to disable 2.4G wireless AP?

[Codeblue229]

I believe this is an old question but I really wonder why netgear insist on using same SSID for both 2.4G and 5G while having the option to disable 2.4G wireless AP on the latest fireware. My need is simple: I want my iphone to connect to 5G ONLY or otherwise just drop wifi altogether and fallback to my 4G cellphone network. Any suggestion?

[st_shaw]

One of Orbi's goals is to provide seamless roaming throughout the house.  Unless you have only one room, or unless you have an AP in every room, 2.4 GHz is needed to do this.  The 5 GHz signal doesn't travel very well through walls.  Furthermore, a single SSID is required for your phone to switch rapidly/seamlessly from 2.4 to 5 and back.

Why do you want your iPhone to connect to 5 GHz only?

[Codeblue229]

First of all, due to the layout of my flat and its limited number of power sockets, I can't really have my home covered with enough Orbi satellites. With 2.4G staying on my phone might keep on running in extremely low network speed in certain zone where 2.4G signal is weak (but not weak enough for my phone to drop). When this happen I would have to turn wifi off in order to force my phone to access to the way-faster LTE cellphone network. Also, I do have other AP configured 5G only but as long as there's weak 2.4G signal my phone won't switch to it automatically. 

If I could at least turn 2.4G signal off, I could access to whatever network offering reasonable speed without the hassle to change my wifi setting occasionally. After all, why remove an option that's anyway available in any other model of routers?

[aaz]

 Is your flat more than 7500 sq feet of space, because that is what a satelite plus router should be able to cover.

But if you don't intend to use the Orbi for what it was designed you should just probably consider a Wifi extender. By having other wireless devices with an orbi you are just providing interference signals thereby assuring that you will have a bad Orbi experience.

[st_shaw]

It's hard to tell from your post, but if you have any APs active at the same time as Orbi, then you are creating significnat problems for yourself.  If you are going to use Orbi, you should turn ALL other WiFi APs off and use only Orbi.

Normally, LTE should not be faster than 2.4 GHz WiFi.  Orbi WiFi operates at a link speed of either 200 or 400 Mbps on 2.4 GHz (depending on whether the bandwidth is at 20 or 40 MHz.)  So, with a decent signal you should get 100 to 200 Mbps throughput on a good client. In any case you should get at least 40-50 Mbps, which is fast enough to do most anything on a phone.  Also, if you switch to LTE you cannot access anything on your home network. That's not normally how you want your phone to behave at home.

I'm curious how you can possibly not have enough power outlets for Orbi. The two-unit Orbi covers my 3-level 3,000 SF house, and way out into the yard.  I only need two power outlets for that.

[Codeblue229]

OK, I live in a crowded city apartment where there's 10s of AP from my neighbors surrounding me anyway. We got many small rooms partitioned by brick and concrete that might dampen the signal quality. I have to put my RKB50 router inside a wooden shelf because its way too big and it doesn't match my interior design. Without the satellite I can't even connect to wifi at my farest room. Yes I got enough power outlets but none of them are installed next to a desk or shelf where I could reasonably place that bulky RKB50 satellite in a tidy manner.

The fact is that when I run speedtest right next to the router it's around 100Mbps (at 5G I believe). It can drops to below 10Mbps at some of my farest rooms (2.4G thru a satellite), where I could safely get around 60Mbps with my LTE network.

[st_shaw]

@Codeblue229  You have a difficult environment then. Your ideal solution would be a collection of wired APs, running on 5 GHz only. The larger number of channels would better allow you to set channels unused by neighbors.  Because 5 GHz doesn't go through walls well, you need APs close to clients to get decent speed.  So, you'd probably need one AP in every other room.  You'd need to manually set their channels and powers so they don't overlap each other, and so they didn't conflict with your neighbors APs.  The block walls would help avoid neighbors.

Unless you already have Ethernet wired in most rooms, you'd need to run wires along the ceiling or baseboard.

You can't create a setup like that with Orbi. You need the 2.4 GHz to penetrate walls.  The only suggestion I can make is to do a WiFi survey and manually set Orbi's 2.4 GHz channels to best avoid neighbors' APs.