Band steering 5ghz

Product Discussion Pepwave AP & Surf
1

Is there band steering as referenced on the Balance here (Band Steering - Prefer vs Force) on the Surf SOHO?

I have 3 wireless AP – one guest, one IoT, and one for home network. 3 seems to the max so I can’t afford to have both a dedicated 5ghz and 2.4ghz home network AP. Unfortunately I have devices that can only be used with 2.4 on the network and other devices that are 801.11ac compatible and would benefit from our ISP 120mbps down.

I have tried to find a way to steer those ac devices to 5ghz but from what I can tell they just join either band arbitrarily. My download speeds are cut in half, so I’m looking for a solution.

Thanks!

2

AP > Profiles > Default (or other if you have more than one profile)
Near the top of the Profile setup is an option for Preferred Frequency
This would affect all your SSID

To make this setting for a specific SSID go to
AP > Wireless SSID
On the SSID setup page there is a blue question mark at the top right. Click on the question mark, you will see an option for Advanced settings. The band steering option will appear

I’m not sure how the Profile and SSID options interact with each other. I would expect the Profile to override, but maybe someone else can verify.

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3

Hi, thanks for the suggestions.

Is this for the Surf SOHO? What firmware are you referencing? I am using 7.0.0

I do not see any options for Profiles under AP or band steering option under advanced SSID.

Thanks

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5

Click the blue question mark. It should open up advanced SSID settings

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@jmjones, those are the advanced SSID settings.

Before clicking the question mark to open the advanced settings, it looks like this:

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7

My apologies. I figured an AP config would be the same across products. I really need to get a SOHO to really see what is different.

gonna have to wait for a soho expert to chime in…

8

@Andrew_Krueger, Band Steering not available on SOHO. This feature is available on Balance 20/30 and above.

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9

@TK_Liew OK thanks for the clarification.

So in reference to my original question, would you say my only option to guarantee device level bands is to have two of my three available wireless AP be dedicated to different bands?

Thank you.

10

@Andrew_Krueger, believe you are using old SOHO router. The old SOHO router supports single radio only. Hence, you either can use 2.4GHz or 5GHz.

11

@TK_Liew

The router is brand new (MK3) with latest firmware (7.0.0).

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What makes you believe it is an old SOHO?

Thanks

12

@Andrew_Krueger, based on my understanding, you have 2 type of Wifi devices. One type supports 2.4GHz only but another supports 802.11ac. Both types of devices need to connect to “Home” SSID. You have the problem on 802.11ac devices when they connect to 2.4GHz. Do correct me if I am wrong.

SOHO supports 3 SSID only. I suggest creating SSID below:-

  • Home_5GHz - For 802.11ac and IoT devices
  • Home_2.4GHz - For 2.4GHz devices and IoT devices
  • Guest

Alternatively, please consider upgrading to Balance One.

Thanks.

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13

@TK_Liew,

Yes you’ve got it right.

I did end up going a similar route except that I prefer IoT devices isolated from my home network and each other, so they are on the Guest network.

Thanks for the help