Dual Band and Band Steering

[BBDave]

Hi All,

Looking at using the Band Steering option to push devices which are capable of 5ghz over to that but still need the 2.4ghz as well.

So may question is where to set the band steering option, the doco I found says configured on a per SSID basis under Access Control.  However I noticed there is a RF profile where you can configure Band Steering for either per AP or per SSID and all the AP's use the RF profile it would make sense to configure it there.

So where is the best place to configure this option or do you need to do both?

Thanks

Dave

[BrechtSchamp]

RF Profiles are the newer way to do things. The old settings are still there for legacy setups, but as the warning shows in the dashboard, these may be overridden by the RF Profiles ones.

Have a look at this section in the docs, I think it will provide more clarity for you:

https://documentation.meraki.com/MR/Radio_Settings/RF_Profiles#RF_Profiles_and_Old_Radio_Settings

[BBDave]

Hi BrechtSchamp

Thanks for the information it's very helpful.

Thanks
Dave

[NolanHerring]

I would recommend, if you can, to separate the SSID's completely so that you have a dedicated 5GHz only SSID, and a dedicated 2.4GHz only SSID (different name). This will makes things much smoother for your clients. Band-Steering works great on paper, but in reality its hit or miss, even with a great RF design.

You have to contact support to have them enable the option to create a 2.4GHz only SSID in your dashboard view, but once they do it will always show up as an option.

[BBDave]

Hi NolanHerring,

Thanks for the information. Unfortunately having two separate SSID's (different name) is not really an option so I think the dual band with band steering maybe be the best option at the moment.

Thanks
Dave

[cmeyerdnh]

In my experience band steering works fine for devices that work on 5hz. Devices that only support 2.4 do not tolerate it. My experience is with legacy and IOT devices. They will connect but disconnect and reconnect constantly. Given the way Meraki states band steering works, I do not know why this should be. Could be something in the config could be adjusted to fix it but I couldn't figure it out. Kind of defeats the point of band steering, but since that riff raff was to be be isolated anyway it was an easy fix.

[pjc]

Haven't revisited band steering for a while, but when we tried it a few years ago, it just caused us pain.  As Nolan says, design a netork with sufficient 5ghz coverage/overlap with a dedicated 5ghz only SSiD for your critical business devices.  Allow the personal/public devices to use the 2.4ghz band

[BBDave]

Hi All,

Thanks for the information and sorry for the late reply been a little busy over the last few days.

I've enabled Dual Band with Steering and I'm going to monitor it for a week or so and see if it helps or there are any issue.

Thanks

Dave