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Message 1 of 5

Working dual-band on a Smart Hub 2

I’m new to using dual-band WiFi, so apologies if these questions are common...

My old laptop has an inbuilt 802.11n 2.4GHz WiFi adaptor. It will only talk to my Smart Hub2 at 144/72Mbps even when right next to it.

I have now bought an AC1200 USB adapter and this works quite well on the 5GHz band. The laptop will talk at 835Mbps when close to the router, but only about 535Mbps when used in its normal location on another floor. No real problem with that, it’s still a lot better than on the 2.4GHz band.

The 5GHz signal is only about 3/4 strength at the laptop’s normal location and does seem to drop out on occasions. I would like to run both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz connections concurrently, with the idea that whenever the 5GHz signal drops out the laptop will continue working on the 2.4GHz band until it can switch back to the 5GHz band. But will that actually work?

I have connected both bands concurrently, but there seems to be no way of checking which one the laptop is actually using (or does it actually use both ?). Also when both are in use Windows only reports the speed data for the 2.4GHz adapter and not for the 5Ghz adapter as well.

Am I trying to do something which is not feasible, or simply not doing it correctly?

 

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Message 2 of 5

Re: Working dual-band on a Smart Hub 2

Devices will only use one band or the other, not both concurrently.

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Message 3 of 5

Re: Working dual-band on a Smart Hub 2

OK, but...is it possible to make it use just the 5GHz by default but fall back to the 2.4GHz if the former fails? That would not be 'concurrent' in the strict sense of the word.

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Message 4 of 5

Re: Working dual-band on a Smart Hub 2

it's not the hub that selects whether your device uses the 2.4 or 5ghz network that is down to each device



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Message 5 of 5

Re: Working dual-band on a Smart Hub 2

5Ghz WiFi is faster than 2.4Ghz WiFi but has a much shorter range and speed drops off much more sharply with distance. If you leave devices to their own devices, if you will excuse the pun, they will choose the best signal.

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