feasibility moving from Wireless 2.4ghz to 5Ghz in the home...

[ranj]

Hi there

 

At home I am on Virgin media 60mb broadband and have the super hub modem, was taking a look at the configuration and noticed the wireless band functionality.

 

Correct me if I am wrong but 5Ghz has a number of benefits such as less interference meaning better wireless speeds, doesn't have a better range as 2.4ghz and potentially I could use 300mb rather than the 144mb I currently use with G.

 

I have probably up to 20 devices in the home which connect to the wireless. How would I go about knowing if the devices are compatible with 5Ghz without going through the manual for every device? Is there an easier way? Could I use an app of somesort?

 

On a slightly related note. I noticed there is an option for 'greenfield mode', this is currently off. Any benefits of turning this on?

 

Many thanks

[anthonyd]

You'd be lucky if all your devices support 5GHz. It should give better range and less interference but lots of devices will only be 2.4GHz - I've found most Apple Products support it and newer Laptops/Tablets do but also a lot won't support it, a quick google search should reveal if the device supports it or not.

 

Greenfield mode is supposed to increase throughput on 802.11n I believe, but given the shocking performance I've seen from most VM Superhubs you'll probably not notice much difference. I gave up on ours after not being able to get anymore than 10meg tops through wireless despite playing about with all the settings and got a separate TP-Link router running OpenWRT which is great.

Edited April 28, 2013 by anthonyd

[edutech4schools]

My Netgear hub has both 2.4 and 5ghz enabled. If a device works with 5ghz it gets listed as a wireless sid-5ghz if the device does not work with this it does not get listed.

[Homeland]

The easiest way is to set it to 5Ghz and see what doesn’t connect then you will have your answer.

 

You can easily move it back to 2.4Ghz later.

[BenABF]

I'd advise getting a proper dual band router that can support both concurrently. The VM "Super" hub does support either 2.4 or 5 but not both at the same time. This way you can take advantage of both.