To band steer or not to band steer

[RumorConsumer]

I just read this most excellent article

https://www.networkcomputing.com/wireless-infrastructure/4-wifi-band-steering-myths

And the part about there needing to be more abundant 5ghz APs for it to work right plus the fact that i am in a very non congested area (wide open country no other SSIDs for miles) makes 2.4ghz connections very appealing. And I have often looked at my devices in certain conditions where 2.4 was for sure available and the devices were struggling to get a 5ghz link and thought “huh? That’s not right”.

read this article - https://documentation.meraki.com/MR/Radio_Settings/Band_Steering_Overview

 The part where it talks about regardless of whether the 5 GHz signal is very weak and perhaps the 2.4 GHz signal is very strong it will still prefer the 5 sounds like a problem I encounter here on a regular basis where there are hills and trees and all kinds of stuff in the way of a lot of 5ghz traffic and I’m yelling at it to just grab the 2.4 and get on with it.

My sense is dual band without band steering is probably the right set up for me.

Any thoughts or guidance?

[PhilipDAth]

Your choice seems good to me.

[RumorConsumer]

Ok I just switched it to dual band without band steering. Wish me luck!

[cta102]

You may wish to have differently named SSIDs so you are sure of connecting to your preferred band

[RumorConsumer]

@cta102 that will for sure never happen here. My network needs to be simple for users above all else. As long as they can simply get a connection and surf the web without interruption or instability they are happy and so am I. So even if its 2.4 at 100mbit, we are in great shape. Because I have basically no wireless interference and under 120 users over 18 APs and 160 acres 2.4ghz is a good option for us.  

[cta102]

No problem, it's just a thing that some folks do to ensure they know what band they are on.

[RumorConsumer]

So if a client is on 2.4ghz is there any mechanism by which at some point if 5ghz seems like a better connection it will switch the client automatically to the 5ghz band? It should, no? 

@PhilipDAth ?

Just looking at my network after the change a lot of my clients switched over to 2.4 and have great dB. Looks good. 

[RumorConsumer]

Just had this exact thing happen before my very eyes where 2.4 bounced up to 5ghz.

[PhilipDAth]

>So if a client is on 2.4ghz is there any mechanism by which at some point if 5ghz seems like a better connection it will switch the client automatically to the 5ghz band?

This is 100% client dependent.  Some client are better than others.  Some clients are terrible.

[RumorConsumer]

Generally the Mac OS X and iOS (vast majority of my users) network stack seems to do this pretty well. Any experience to share about different OS flavors?

[BrechtSchamp]

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@RumorConsumer wrote:

Ok I just switched it to dual band without band steering. Wish me luck!

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I guess no one did it yet... Good luck!

[cta102]

It's a must have feature if you require it and there is no one size fits all solution

If you have 5GHz issues location then you don't need to make things more difficult for yourself.

But ensure the 2.4 setup is optimal as it can seem a bit slow these days.