2.4 and 5ghz - Same SSID or Seperate?

[Steve21]

Morning All,

 

Still playing around with our 2 wireless networks (Yes 2) to try to get it to work properly until it's ripped out soon and was just wondering would there be any specific reason to have different frequencies on different SSIDs? (Currently set to 2 different ones)

 

Also with things like RADIUS can it work while wandering between 2 networks? (e.g. Set both Controllers to use Smoothwall as server/accounting) or would you need to authenticate to both first manually?

 

Thanks,

Steve

[Sagima]

Ours have the same SSID broadcasting on both frequencies. don't know about the radius question.

[Michael]

I'd advise you have two separate SSIDs - simply name them WIRELESS and WIRELESS5 for example. Deploy both (to all machines) and only 5GHz compatible devices will use WIRELESS5 and others use WIRELESS on 2.4GHz.

[abillybob]

I've kept them the same at school and had no issues because 5Ghz is evenly distributed around the school, though at home I like to keep the wireless separate so I can choose which to connect to 2.4ghz if I'm far away from the router and 5ghz if I'm nearby! Depends on your setup!

[truebluesteve]

I can't see any real benefit in having a SSID for each frequency if your AP's are spread evenly around the place. We only have the one here and it all seems to be fine. Not sure about the RADIUS question

[Steve21]

Thanks guys

 

Would be a lot easier once/if new Wireless all comes into play, just so many SSIDs currently about this place (11 in total), so looking to try to make life easier a bit for everyone especially with BYOD

 

Steve

[Geoff]

As to your RADIUS question, it will be seamless if the SSIDs are the same. If you have separate SSID's you'll cause a reauth and therefore a login popup (or whatever you are using).

[Meldrew]

We've had problems because we have a single SSID. We have some tablets which, even though we have 5gig and 2.4 both available, all 30 tablets will decide to connect to 2.4 and therefore all run like a dog. When we created a 5gig SSID and connected them all to that, they worked (and continue to) like a treat.

 

Meldrew

[Geoff]

You can't do much about cruddy client devices (generally).

[Gaz]

Most AP's today support band steering and will force 5Ghz capable clients onto that range.

[CyberNerd]

Most AP's today support band steering and will force 5Ghz capable clients onto that range.

 

Band steering is a great idea, but in practice what tends to happen is that clients get a poorer 5Ghz signal when a 2.4 Ghz would be more appropriate. It's good in some situations particularly if you have very good 5Ghz coverage. If the coverage isn't guaranteed it can cause more problems. Also consider that in a high density environment you may actually want to use both the 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz channels simultaneously; otherwise it's wasting those antenna/channels.

[Duke5A]

Been rolling with the 2.4G and 5G radios on the same SSID since it's implementation in 2008. This is a fully managed Cisco setup with three controllers, 240 access points and Radius auth.