Convert office WiFi to only 5Ghz?

[jmaxwellUSAF]

Hi Folks.

In this office there exists WiFi drops. I expect this is because of an over-populated 2.4 GHz band here and also in neighboring offices.

I seem to remember others having success transferring all the APs to 5Ghz. I am considering implementing this fix.

QUESTIONS:

1. Does it make sense to execute this?

2. Have you had experience with this implementation?

3. I've read that the maximum realistic distance for 5Ghz is about 100 meters (this seems high). Does the average laptop and/or cell phone have enough transmit power for this 100 meter distance?

4. If an office uses only the 5Ghz band, how far should AP's be placed so that there is full coverage?

Thank you.

[BrandonS · Accepted solution]

Let's see..

1. Sure.  Understand you may discover some 2.4 only gear that stops working like doorbells, or cameras, or whatever.

2. Yes

3. Never mind that, it is meaningless marketing

4. Totally depends on your environment and needs.  If you are not going to get a proper survey done give it a try.  It easy enough to change back.  If you have too many AP's too close together you could have a lot of co-channel interference which is really noticeable and causes bad performance.  In that case try changing tx power lower or even lowest setting possible.  If you end up needing 2.4 then only enable on it on some, but not all AP's and use channels 1, 6 and 11 only.

[jmaxwellUSAF]

Thank you for your reply.

If APs each use different channels, will endpoints still be able to seamlessly roam from one AP to the next?

[BrandonS]

Yes.  If you have APs with the same channel near each other that will cause problems/drops.  You are not supposed to overlap same channels at all.

[BrandonS]

Have a look at this.