[SOLVED] Wireless networking .

[PaulDesmond]

Hi. I am sharing my (password protected) router with a neighbour. There is a distance and as such the signal is a bit weaker. I have had problems with my provider and so has he. I was recently told to change the settings of the router.

1) Disable of the 5G
2) Disable auto channel and select channel 11.

3) Why is this? Does it mean that Disable of the 5G
4) Makes the 2.4 more powerful? What does disable auto channel do? I was told that if I disabled 5G that would affect my printer if it was wireless.

Need some input into this.

TIA

Desmond.

 

[kanewolf]

New routers have two radios in them. One radio works at 2.4Ghz and the other works at 5Ghz. #1 is a recommendation to disable one of the radios.
I don't know why anybody would recommend that. Disabling that radio would only make a difference if your router was overheating and this lowered the temperature. It won't change your 2.4Ghz.
#2 is a recommendation to pick a fixed channel (number 11) rather than letting the router pick a channel in realtime (auto). This might help or it might hurt. If you live in a residential neighborhood with houses that are spread out picking a channel (1, 6, 11) is OK. If you live in a condo, apartment or dense housing area, then picking a channel doesn't allow the router to monitor the number of competing WIFI signals and choose the best channel.

#4 your printer PROBABLY won't be impacted. Most work on 2.4Ghz WIFI.

 

[failboat]

Changing the channels might help if they are congested from other wifi devices from different neighbors. Disabling 5G doesn't make any sense.

2.4G and 5G throughput changes at different rates as dB gets worse. 5G throughput deteriorates very quickly, but generally starts with much more than 2.4. So for long distance through many walls 2.4 is likely better.

 

[PaulDesmond]

Ok. There is no over heating problem that I know of. These routers don't use much power anyway. I live in an area where I am about the only resident that is using a router.

What are the channels are they side bands centered around the 2.4? Does the router transmit on all channels at the same time OR, does the router receive on all these slightly different channels?

I used to be a radio officer in the merchant navy and understand channels. Even digital TV will transmit multipul tv stations around a band of frequencies.

So is it the router that listens to the different channels of mobile phones and tablets or is it the router that transmits on all the channels. Does changing from auto to CH11 affect my mobile because it TX on CH11.

sorry could do with an insight to this channel stuff.

 

[kanewolf]

WIKI can describe it better than I can -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels#2.4_GHz_(802.11b/g/n/ax) When you look at the "bumps" diagrams, you can see that the only channels that provide the 20Mhz bandwidth and don't overlap are (1, 6, 11).

 

[kanewolf]

The router only transmits and receives on the same frequency. WIFI is half-duplex so the router can only receive OR transmit not both at once.

What model router do you have?