Using MR-46 that support wifi-6 standard, but getting Wifi-5

Mohit_Dhanjal
Getting noticed

Using MR-46 that support wifi-6 standard, but getting Wifi-5

Hi Team,

 

I am using MR-46 AP's that is Wifi-6 compatible, but all clients atr getting WIfi-5 speed, how i can resolve this issue.

 

Kindly help.

10 REPLIES 10
alemabrahao
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

Client device must have to support Wifi-6.

I am not a Cisco Meraki employee. My suggestions are based on documentation of Meraki best practices and day-to-day experience.

Please, if this post was useful, leave your kudos and mark it as solved.
alemabrahao
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

Different standards of Wi-Fi :
These are the Wi-Fi standards that evolved from 1997 to 2021. In 1997 IEEE created one standard and gave the name 802.11.

IEEE 802.11 –

  1. It was developed in 1997.
  2. Speed is about 2 Mbps (2 megabits per second).

IEEE 802.11a –

  1. This standard is developed in 1999.
  2. 802.11a is useful for commercial and industrial purposes.
  3. It works on a 5 GHz frequency.
  4. The maximum speed of 802.11a is 54 Mbps.
  5. This standard was made to avoid interference with other devices which use the 2.4 GHz band.

IEEE 802.11b –

  1. This standard also created with 802.11a in 1999.
  2. The difference is that it uses a 2.4 GHz frequency band.
  3. The speed of 802.11b is 11 Mbps.
  4. This standard is useful for home and domestic use.

IEEE 802.11g –

  1. This standard is designed in 2003.
  2. Basically, it has combined the properties of both 802.11a and 802.11b.
  3. The frequency band used in this is 2.4 GHz for better coverage.
  4. And the maximum speed is also up to 54 Mbps.

IEEE 802.11n –

  1. This was introduced in 2009.
  2. 802.11n operates on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequency bands, they are operated individually.
  3. The data transfer rate is around 600 Mbps.

IEEE 802.11ac –

  1. This standard is developed in 2013 named 802.11ac.
  2. Wi-Fi 802.11ac works on the 5 GHz band.
  3. The maximum speed of this standard is 1.3 Gbps.
  4. It gives less range because of the 5 GHz band, but nowadays most of the devices are working on 802.11n and 802.11ac standards.

IEEE 802.11ax –

  1. It is the newest and advanced version of Wi-Fi.
  2. This is released in 2019.
  3. Operates on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz for better coverage as well as better speed.
  4. User will get 10 Gbps of maximum speed around 30-40 % improvement over 802.11ac

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/wi-fi-standards-explained/

 

You can check the Wifi adapter properties to know if the device supports or not 802.11ax.

 

alemabrahao_0-1668193544106.png

 

 

 

I am not a Cisco Meraki employee. My suggestions are based on documentation of Meraki best practices and day-to-day experience.

Please, if this post was useful, leave your kudos and mark it as solved.
WB
Building a reputation

This information is wildly inaccurate without context applied i.e. 802.11ax 'User will get 10 Gbps of maximum speed' is just straight up incorrect unless stated as 'theoretical' in nature only.

alemabrahao
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

I just presented the general context, if I were going to go into it I would spend hours talking.

I am not a Cisco Meraki employee. My suggestions are based on documentation of Meraki best practices and day-to-day experience.

Please, if this post was useful, leave your kudos and mark it as solved.
WB
Building a reputation

It is a sizeable rabbit hole for sure!

alemabrahao
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

Another important thing, the data rate of the client may vary depending on the signal/distance they are from the access point.

 

alemabrahao_1-1668193937700.png

 

I am not a Cisco Meraki employee. My suggestions are based on documentation of Meraki best practices and day-to-day experience.

Please, if this post was useful, leave your kudos and mark it as solved.
KarstenI
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

The main difference between Wifi5 and Wifi 6 is 1024-QAM modulation instead of 256-QAM. The rest didn't turn out to be useful in the wild for now. But to take advantage of 1024-QAM the WiFi-6 client needs to be quite close to the AP which is most often not the case. The result is that Wifi6 and Wifi5 are not really that different.

ww
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

You can check the wireless profile if ax is enabled

GIdenJoe
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Kind of a big deal

I second ww's answer.  Make sure in your RF profiles (wireless -> radio configuration) the disable ax button is not checked.

If you are using a client that is also WiFi  rated then it will associate to the SSID using WiFi 6 tech.
You can check by performing a wireless capture on a neighboring access pointt to see in the radiotap header if it is using HE instead of VHT.

NolanHerring
Kind of a big deal

Before we can assist you any further, you'll have to let us know what the client machine is. Specifically if you can let us know what the actual network interface card (NIC) model is.

Nolan Herring | nolanwifi.com
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