Question New router, 2.4 and 5ghz question

[MattJKz]

hi everyone,

Recently purchased a TP Link AX3000/AX53 router dual band wifi 6.

I have changed ISP from Telstra to Exetel to reduce some costs and get slightly better upload speed.

I also have installed the one mesh TP link RE200 wifi extender.

everything seems to be working correctly, although on my iPhone XR, when connected to 5ghz websites sometimes just don’t load at all, streaming services will pause and not resume.

I have full 3 bar wifi signal on my phone with 5Ghz.

if I switch over to 2.4ghz it seems much more stable and faster. Speed tests indicate only a slight variation in speeds between the 2.

I have turned off smart connect so I can connect my phone to 2.4ghz

Is this to be expected sometimes? I’m new to dual band routers, my previous router was the Telstra Gen2 smart modem I’m not sure if that was dual band but I never went into the settings for it ever.

We have about 13 devices connected, 2 wired the rest wifi. Only mine is active right now as it’s 3am.

The only other thing I changed was a Cat6 cable into Wan port on router and into NBN box. Previously it was Cat5e as I read they were better?

Have I done everything correctly? Maybe something I have missed in setting up.

 

[bill001g]

I would test without the extender/repeater. These type of device are going to greatly degrade your performance.

It depends on if your end devices can actually use wifi6. If not then the new tplink will provide no benefit over the telstra. It might actually be worse again depending on what you end devices support.
The tplink router when it drops back to wifi5 (ie 802.11ac) it does not support some the advanced modes your telstra did. Then again it might not matter because your end device may not support them either.

Unless you can actually use wifi6 stuff you likely will see no difference.

Where did you read cat6 was better, on some site selling cables?. Cat5e is rated to 1gbit at 100 meters. Cat6 is exactly the same. Now maybe if you have a use for 2.5g then you can use cat6 but your NBN box does not have 2.5g ports so it will be no different than cat5e.

After you turn off the repeater I would try using different SSID on 2.4 and 5 radio so you can force your device to connect where you want.

 

[MattJKz]

Thanks for the reply mate, a lot of stuff there I hadn’t thought of or didn’t know.

I am certain only my wife’s phone is wifi 6 capable currently, the new gen3 modem from Telstra is wifi6 now so I just assumed this was the way to go.

I changed modems as my new ISP said Telstra smart modem gen2 are locked. So I went and got my own instead of paying for one of theirs.

We have 2 smart TV’s about a year old, 3 iPads for the kids, not the latest so unlikely wifi6. They can all connect to the 5ghz so I guess wifi5?

Regarding the extender, this did indeed help extend our wifi range to cover our whole house, it’s the RE200 dual band wifi booster. But I will try what you mentioned to see if it helps.

Cat6 cable I read online somewhere, as long as they aren’t worse than the cat5e I was using then I’m ok with it. I had the same cables for many years so probably due for a few new ones.

With changing the SSID do you mean to also re enable smart connect? As currently with smart connect disable I can connect to either band at my choosing now instead of it switching automatically.

Thanks so much for your reply, much appreciated

Sorry I understand what you said now, I had already changed the SSID for 5ghz so I could distinguish what is what.

I have already seen a improvement with smart connect turned off, as before on router settings page, every device we had was connected via 5ghz.

Now with it off some have reverted to 2.4ghz so it could of been too many on 5ghz for my router and internet to handle I would assume? I will go through later and put any low use devices onto 2.4 and leave our high use/streaming devices on 5ghz

I would test without the extender/repeater. These type of device are going to greatly degrade your performance.

It depends on if your end devices can actually use wifi6. If not then the new tplink will provide no benefit over the telstra. It might actually be worse again depending on what you end devices support.
The tplink router when it drops back to wifi5 (ie 802.11ac) it does not support some the advanced modes your telstra did. Then again it might not matter because your end device may not support them either.

Unless you can actually use wifi6 stuff you likely will see no difference.

Where did you read cat6 was better, on some site selling cables?. Cat5e is rated to 1gbit at 100 meters. Cat6 is exactly the same. Now maybe if you have a use for 2.5g then you can use cat6 but your NBN box does not have 2.5g ports so it will be no different than cat5e.

After you turn off the repeater I would try using different SSID on 2.4 and 5 radio so you can force your device to connect where you want.

 

[bill001g]

Not sure I have not used iphone stuff for a while. If it can force the band it should be ok. Many devices are "too" smart and when you use the same SSID for 2.4 and 5 they will pick the strongest signal which tends to be 2.4g BUT it has much less bandwidth. Many times a lower power 5g signal will out perform a 2.4g. All depends on how much interference you get from neighbors.

A repeater adds a level of complexity to this in addition to hurting the performance. You many times can't force your device to connect to the main router or extender and sometimes there is a vast difference in performance. Your best method of extending wifi is to use ethernet to connect the repeater to the main router. If you don't have ethernet you can consider MoCA if you have coax cables or powerline network. Both are far better than a wireless repeater.

 

[MattJKz]

Thanks mate, I understood what you said after I already replied, I did indeed change SSID for the 5ghz band, I just added a 5 after our normal SSID so I could distinguish between the 2.

It’s already feeling more consistent with the smart connect turned off. Looking on my router settings before, every device was connect via 5ghz, which is a total of around 14-15. So maybe it was too many at once?

Now smart connect is turned off it doesn’t automatically select a band, some of the devices have reverted back to the 2.4ghz connection.

Or it was something else in smart connect that it was doing to affect performance.

The booster we have is a OneMesh compliant booster so it apparently seamlessly can switch your devices from router to booster when needed.

But I do have the option of running powerline or Ethernet direct from router to booster so I will also give this a try.

once again thanks so much for your replies.

Not sure I have not used iphone stuff for a while. If it can force the band it should be ok. Many devices are "too" smart and when you use the same SSID for 2.4 and 5 they will pick the strongest signal which tends to be 2.4g BUT it has much less bandwidth. Many times a lower power 5g signal will out perform a 2.4g. All depends on how much interference you get from neighbors.

A repeater adds a level of complexity to this in addition to hurting the performance. You many times can't force your device to connect to the main router or extender and sometimes there is a vast difference in performance. Your best method of extending wifi is to use ethernet to connect the repeater to the main router. If you don't have ethernet you can consider MoCA if you have coax cables or powerline network. Both are far better than a wireless repeater.