[SOLVED] Isolating guests' slower devices - for my own fast devices to be not limited in connection speed

[PiffPuff]

Hi guys,

it's known that all devices connected to the same WiFi router (network?) are always connected at the speed of the slowest device from the list. AFAIK, this is because tokens, that designate which device is allowed to talk at any given time, can only work properly if the slowest device is also able to get them.

With that considered, is there any possibility to isolate any potentially slower device (i.e., guests' devices) from my own devices in the network - to secure their fastest possible WiFi connection speed?
I've heard that the possibility of such isolation is somehow dependent on my router's ability to work with channels and frequences, but I don't know the details.

Will highly appreciate your help guys. Just in case: my device is ASUS GT-AX6000 (dual-band 2.5/5GHz, which also combines these frequences and their bandwidth into a WiFi6 connection up to 4.8Gb/s).

 

[bill001g]

Slower devices do not affect the bandwidth in the way you think they do. Device all connect at the maximum speed they each support. The router will quickly change between the encoding protocols as it switches devices.

What does happen is since a slower device needs more time to transmit data so the time the radio chip is in use on the router is longer to transmit the same size packet. This tends to still be extremely small amounts of time and it really is the same problem as if you had another high speed user downloading lots of stuff.

There is not much you can do about it. Maybe run some devices on the 2.4g radio and others on the 5g radio. In general it will not have much if any impact to just run a mix of devices. It is how much traffic they use in general that matters more.

What you can do is limit the traffic but there is no way to tell how a device is connected. You can't really even tell if a device is using ethernet or wifi. If you had a list of mac addresses it might be possible to do something but id you have guest devices that is unlikely.
The ax6000 supports adaptive QoS. That is likely your best option since it tries to treat all traffic equally. You can also load merlin firmware on that router and it has a few other QoS options.
I would not do this unless you are having a perfomance issues and have a slower internet...say under 100mbps. These feature take huge amounts of cpu to run on faster internet connection and you will cap your data rate to say 300mbps. Then again if you are maxing out a 1gbit connection you have lots more issues.
Note this feature and any QoS only works on internet traffic it does not limit the wifi traffic directly so if for example you have wifi user coping data from a local NAS storage there is no way to limit that traffic.

I really hate it when people buy these really expensive routers not really understanding what they do and just buy a big number. First you can't combine the frequencies on a single device for more bandwidth but that is how they get their silly 6000 number. Wifi6 is almost useless.
To get the really high speeds they use 160mhz radio channels and 4x4 mimo. The 160mhz radio channels are subject to all kinds of rules about interference with things like weather radar. Because of this most end devices only support 80mhz channels...this is exactly the same as the older wifi5. In addition that router is attempting to use 4x4 mimo. Almost all end devices only have 2 antenna because of size. Pretty much if you are going to buy a fancy router you need to go to wifi6e. There is more bandwidth on the 6g radio band so it tends to work better and have fewer restrictions. Problem is not all devices support wifi6e yet.

 

[PiffPuff]

Thank you so much for such an informative reply - appreciate that!

There is not much you can do about it. Maybe run some devices on the 2.4g radio and others on the 5g radio. In general it will not have much if any impact to just run a mix of devices.

So restricting guest access to WiFi to only 2.4g (I assume technically this is feasible) won't bring me any benefits, right? Probably my own devices (those close to the router - since 5g has shorter efficient range vs. 2.4g) will have faster download/upload speed, no?

If you had a list of mac addresses it might be possible to do something but id you have guest devices that is unlikely.

I can prioritize my devices, which MAC addresses are known....

The ax6000 supports adaptive QoS. That is likely your best option since it tries to treat all traffic equally.

You can also load merlin firmware on that router and it has a few other QoS options.
I would not do this unless you are having a perfomance issues and have a slower internet...say under 100mbps. These feature take huge amounts of cpu to run on faster internet connection and you will cap your data rate to say 300mbps.

Do you mean that it's exactly Merlin firmware that is CPU resource-consuming, or rather that QoS in general (even as a stock firmware feature) slows down router's performance and it's better to have it OFF (as a good rule of a thumb)?

I really hate it when people buy these really expensive routers not really understanding what they do and just buy a big number. First you can't combine the frequencies on a single device for more bandwidth but that is how they get their silly 6000 number. Wifi6 is almost useless.

There is more bandwidth on the 6g radio band so it tends to work better and have fewer restrictions.

Well, WiFi6 devices work fast on 6GHz only, no? On 2.4g and 5g they are slower than 6g devices AFAIK.

Example:
ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AX6000

• 1.1Gb/s @ 2.4GHz
• 4.8Gb/s @ 5GHz
• 5.9Gb/s @ 2.4GHz + 5GHz

ASUS ZenWiFi ET8 (WiFi6e)

• 0.57Gb/s @ 2.4GHz
• 1.2Gb/s @ 5GHz
• 4.8Gb/s @ 6GHz

The latter is slower, isn't it? Even at 6GHz.

 

[bill001g]

You could run the guest network on 2.4g. They would then not compete for wifi bandwidth they would still use your internet bandwidth.

5g should always be faster unless you happen to be in one of those houses that eats lots of wifi. The problem with 2.4g going farther is your neighbors interfering 2.4g signals go farther also

QoS in general the merlin firmware is slightly more efficient but it depends on what you are measuring, it is not worse than the factory.

Only wifi6e works on 6g.....that is pretty much the only difference between wifi6 and wifi6e. Problem is the only way to get 4.8g is to use 160mhz radio bands. Most equipment wifi6 equipment only supports 80 so it might say it is wifi6 but it really is not much difference than wifi5 which also uses 80mhz radio channel width.

You can't compare top of the line wifi6 to a mid level wifi6e. Look at asus AXE11000

ROG Rapture GT-AXE11000 | Routers | ROG United States

Tri-Band Wifi 6E Gaming Router, Latest WiFi Standard, 6GHz Band, 10 Gigabit, 2.5G Gaming Port, VPN, Network Security, Mesh WiFi System, WiFi Coverage

rog.asus.com

It can in theory run 4.8 on both 5 and 6. BUT you can not actually add the speeds together like you did a end device can only use a single radio band at a time. Now maybe in a year or so when wifi7 comes out that might be possible.

It doesn't really matter a lot. Most people get about 300mbps using wifi6 because there end devices do not support all the features. If you spend the money for fancy wifi6 end devices you might get 600mbps. Wifi6e can get closer to 900mbps because there is less interference since few people have wifi6e devices yet.

 

[PiffPuff]

You could run the guest network on 2.4g. They would then not compete for wifi bandwidth they would still use your internet bandwidth.

Well, good to know - thank you! I will not win in connection speed or in bandwidth, but I will at least isolate all the crowd competing for frequencies (neighbours, guests) on 2.4g 🆒

You can't compare top of the line wifi6 to a mid level wifi6e. Look at asus AXE11000

With all due respect to AXE11000, mate - AX6000 is a beast, which is at the very least not worse (more likely - even better) than 11000. Read reviews about it, you'll see. And it's 4.8Gb/s is real, measured by multiple reviewers.

 

[bill001g]

What are you talking about you listed the ASUS ZenWiFi ET8. Yes the AX6000 is a very powerful router but it is only wifi6 it is not wifi6e. You can't compare a top of the line wifi6 model to a mid road wifi6e model.
You can't really even compare the ax6000 to the axe11000. It is more to compare the zen et8. Now asus does make a ax11000 which is a wifi5 router and is has 2 5g radio chips and is expensive that you could compare the ax6000.

Any review that say 4.8 is a transfer rate they can actually obtain is outright telling lies.

 

[PiffPuff]

@bill001g Thank you for your support - appreciate your time and valuable info you've shared!