Dual-band router: is it faster to run 2 devices on 5GHZ band or to put one on 2.4 GHZ and the other on 5 GHZ?

[Mikey2]

I have a Linksys dual-band EA4500 router. I have one SSID running the 2.4 GHZ band and a second running on the 5GHZ band.

My question is: I currently exclusively use the 5 GHZ SSID for obvious reasons. But now I am adding a second device I expect to also use considerable (simultaneous) bandwidth.

Now is it faster overall to add the new device to the 5ghz SSID and have both devices using that. or is it faster to add the second device to the 2.4 GHZ band, since although 2.4 is slower, each device has a dedicated band, thus allowing more overall through-put?

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

Yes, no, sometimes, it depends, and maybe.

The best way to find out is to try it and see. Every unique radio has it's own peculiarities and not all radio combinations work identically. Of course, max throughput on any particular band has to be shared, so as you add devices, your total available throughput for each device will necessarily go down, although if the devices aren't using up all of the bandwidth, this shouldn't be an issue.

Something else to consider is that 2.4 GHz has far better distance and penetration characteristics, so if you have a device that isn't operating well on WiFi, switching to the more tolerant band may actually improve throughput, despite having less potential bandwidth available.

You can try some online bandwidth tests if you want quick results for throughput with your devices, if they are connecting to the internet, or for better throughput testing, use a tool like iPerf, which will show you throughput over your local network, where one machine acts as a host while another acts as a client. Ideally you would test it with both devices on the band in question, and with both on separate bands, with a third machine connected via Ethernet, and see what your results are. Also, you can see the effects of various network adapter settings on bandwidth as well.

 

[technor]

Answer depends on a number of factors.
2.4 GHZ - Longer distance, lower bandwidths
5 GHZ - Shorter Distance, higher bandwidth.

Speed / performance of the band is really dependent on the Router configuration - is it a performance router or a basic router.

In your case if the data transmission is heavy (like media files or large files) makes sense to use a 5 GHZ band since the throughput is higher. If it is a normal file, then use of 2.4 GHZ should be fine.

 

[Mikey2]

Thanks for the responses, but I am curious about which is faster with multiple clients *simultaneously* using the network.

Forget about the differences of 2.4 and 5 GHz for a moment. And let's take an extreme case. Say you have 10 computers at home, would it be better to put all 10 computers on the 5 GHz band or should you put some on the 2.4 GHz band to free up some bandwidth?

Or to put it another way: does a home router utilize all it's throughput if you just use one band, or if you just use, say 5 GHz, is there available bandwidth being wasted since no one is using the 2.4 GHz band, or does that matter at all?

 

[technor]

5GHz is always faster in terms of throughput, but it suffers with shorter distance range. So technically speaking, it is always better to put all the devices in the higher throughput range assuming that the wi-fi coverage in your home / place is adequately covering the entire range required.

A router throughput is a theoretical maximum that the vendors market for publicity. In reality that is hard to achieve since throughput is dependent on a number of factors. Distance from Wifi (farther from the router, throughput reduces), walls (thicker walls / lined walls, or wood walls with sheet wool) - all of them affect throughput, interference - are there any devices in the same radio range, height of the router - is this high above or at human height or even lower? Us moving around also affects the speed / throughput.

So my point is - you get maximum throughput from 5 GHZ band since it is designed for high bandwidth.

Remember that the router also matters - I use Asus high end routers that have multiple processors and lots of RAM o handle load. An older TP Link and Netgear I had couldn't handle my home load of 20 devices including 2 streaming servers. So after a while the DHCP would fail and no IP assignment worked. This also affects performance quite a bit.

But you may not get the throughput advertised by the vendor overall for reasons noted above.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the responses, but I am curious about which is faster with multiple clients *simultaneously* using the network.

Forget about the differences of 2.4 and 5 GHz for a moment. And let's take an extreme case. Say you have 10 computers at home, would it be better to put all 10 computers on the 5 GHz band or should you put some on the 2.4 GHz band to free up some bandwidth?

Or to put it another way: does a home router utilize all it's throughput if you just use one band, or if you just use, say 5 GHz, is there available bandwidth being wasted since no one is using the 2.4 GHz band, or does that matter at all?