One Combined Or Two Separate SSIDs?

Product Discussion Pepwave AP & Surf
1

I’m deploying three Pepwave AP One AC Minis in a large home. I’m going to enable both the 2.4 Ghz and 5 GHz radios. There will be android and iOS smartphones connecting and iPads and Windows Laptops connecting. Is it a better idea to have separate SSIDs for the two radios or give them the same SSID? Thanks.

2

I recommend to use the same SSID for both AP’s. This way the devices will be able to associate with either AP using the same credentials. Thanks.

3

I do plan on assigning the same SSIDs to each AP. My question is should I use separate SSIDs for the two different frequency bands? Thanks.

4

Hi,

There is no standard answer whether or not to to separate the SSIDs for two different frequency bands. Band steering can be enable for the APs to detect whether the WIFI client is running on dual bands and for handling the 2.4Ghz/5Ghz association requests. For more information regarding to band steering, please refer to the forum thread below:

For WIFI issue troubleshooting purposes, i will recommend to separate the SSIDs. This will help you to isolate whether this is regarding to 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz issue.

Thank You

5

@XrayDoc88 The theory behind separate names was with single antenna systems that would slow down to the lowest capable device speed. One 802.11b device could slow down any G devices on the same AP. Dual band means that the client can manage which frequency is optimal with no impact to the overall access point. 5gHz is fast, but doesn’t penetrate well. 2.4 is slower, but works through more obstacles.

The band steering that was recommended by @sitloongs is a great technology and it seems to work very well. I am using the “Prefer” method with 5gHz as the preferred. I have mainly apple mobile devices like you and it works well. I have the same SSID on both frequencies. I actually have three SSIDs that map to different VLans - one for guest, one for therapists that come to work with my daughter, and then the main family wifi. Three AP one mini AC and I have no dead space. Well worth running the cables under the house.

With a large area, why not put multiple APs in? The central management is awesome!