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I have a router with both 2.4GHz an 5GHz bands (Xiaomi Redmi AC2100). I burned it with OpenWRT and named both radio0 and radio1 with the same name (initially they were named "something" and "something 5G"). Will it work automatically? I.e. will clients automatically switch between bands in places when one or another network is better?

In other network I have several acess points in "dumb" mode with the same SSID and roaming works without any other efforts. Generally I assume it should work.

But why would vendor give different default names for 5G and normal then? I wonder if there any technical reasons...

Dims
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3 Answers3

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I have a setup with both 2.4 and 5GHz radios sharing the same SSID on two openwrt routes (or - more correctly - access points).

Does it roam? Yes.

Do I see my phone often on 5GHz? No.

Basically the only times I see connection on 5 GHz is when I go downstairs and my phone switches to the AP down there - with nothing in between.

So - it works. Probably no as well as it might but currently I don't need more.

Tomek
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There is no automatic handover in openwrt, but if you get the distance between access points right, putting one in place just as the other gets to it's transmission limit, this will help.

JohnnyVegas
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No it will not work as you expect.

They give you different names on 2.4G and 5G because there is no official band steering on OpenWRT yet.

Naming both of your networks with the same SSID will do nothing to guide your clients to the preferred network, it's 100% up to the client in that case. Only expensive highly mobile devices(phones/laptops) will ever change to 5G. However some of these devices may also switch from network_2G to network_5G also so not sure there is any benefit of having the same SSID.

My opinion is you're better off having separate SSIDs for now, the small benefit of having the same outweighs the many negatives.

One negative part of the same SSID is it's very likely your client will always be on 2.4G and never upsteer to 5G, since 2.4 has longer range your client will see it first and connect there when you're coming home for example.

If you have multiple access points then you're not really dealing with band steering but instead node steering, which is a lot easier but a different question altogether. In short, it is easier for a client to switch nodes than bands since it's usually a matter of just staying connecting instead of optimizing for performance. So the risk/reward of a steer is much simpler.

PS) I should note that it's pretty much always up to the client where it connects even with full band/node steering. The router can merely make suggestions to assist the client in it's decision. If the router ever does anything more aggressive than that to get you to steer then it's going to introduce a whole host of other issues.

realp
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