Forum Discussion
T-Mobile Internet (2.4G) with Alexa Drops Feit Bulbs often and at random
I have a theory but it is only based upon my limited understanding of the actual mechanics of the band steering with 802.11ax. If you still have the single SSID with all devices connecting to it you might try adding a second SSID with, for example, the network name FeitLTS and just use the same authentication type and passphrase as with the general SSID for all your other devices. Move 6 or so of the lights or plugs over to the parallel SSID. If they stay when others fall off then move those that fall off over to the FeitLTS network on the 2.4 GHz radio.
The objective of band steering is to move traffic from one frequency to another to balance the distribution of bandwidth for traffic. I don’t know that the IEEE standard has the requirement for awareness of the capability of the connected nodes. I sort of doubt it. If band steering is initiated and the migration of the 2.4 GHz only client is shifted to a 5 GHz channel then it would make sense it would fall off. I am not sure as I would have to go and read the IEEE standard for the band steering element within the 802.11ax / WI-FI 6 operation to be sure. I don’t think the steering would be a pull operation. I believe it would be a push so to speak. It seems more logical to me to only attempt to move a client to another channel when the current one is congested. If you consider that the 2.4 GHz frequency has less bandwidth than the 5GHz bands and is more of a trash can frequency it sort of makes sense.
I run bands 1, 48 & 149 on my Nokia. I see most of my clients will be connected to channel 1 or channel 48 out of the gate. After some time I do see channel 149 pick up more traffic as there are a few 802.11ax clients that will now gravitate to the upper band more. Since clients don’t just tend to be connecting to the higher 5GHz channel I sort of believe they may end up there due to band steering. I could be wrong but it makes sense to me. Reading IEEE standards is pretty dry so I don’t frequent them unless I just have a true geek moment. Networking engineers just tend to do such goofy things.
The 802.11ax standard does have much more sophisticated strategies for utilizing bandwidth and toys that were NOT available in the 802.11ac and prior standards for wireless communication. It is just the evolution of the wireless technology with the newer more capable chipsets.
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