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Message 1 of 11

Can I disable 5GHz on a BT wifi disc?

I have disabled 5GHz on my Smart Hub 2 (misnomer?) because several of my devices can't use 5GHz, and before I disabled the 5GHz side they refused to connect. They work OK now.

But when I use the wifi disc (range extender), my non-5GHz devices get confused and before long become unable to connect.

I'm guessing that is because the disc is using 2.4GHz and 5GHZ, even though the Hub itself has 5GHz disabled.

Can I disable the 5GHz on the disc so that my devices can only use the 2.4 GHz frequency?

Dai

 

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Message 2 of 11

Re: Can I disable 5GHz on a BT wifi disc?

What is the point of this 5Ghz if we are all turning it off and back to 2Ghz

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Message 3 of 11

Re: Can I disable 5GHz on a BT wifi disc?

Basically, BT messed up by not allowing for the two bands to be given independent SSIDs if required. Lots of devices are confused by this dual character and can't be made to work. You can disable 5GHz on the Hub2, but if you have a range extending disc, I can't figure out how to disable 5GHz on that, so my devices won't work anywhere.

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Message 4 of 11

Re: Can I disable 5GHz on a BT wifi disc?

Yer sounds like it with the routers you could be right !

And if you turn 5Ghz off you lose all connections to stuff connected i've just tried it in the router settings !

Looks like you cant turn it off on the disc as there is no settings really for them or how to rename them or not any i could see ?

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Message 5 of 11

Re: Can I disable 5GHz on a BT wifi disc?


@daiprich wrote:

Basically, BT messed up by not allowing for the two bands to be given independent SSIDs if required. Lots of devices are confused by this dual character and can't be made to work. You can disable 5GHz on the Hub2, but if you have a range extending disc, I can't figure out how to disable 5GHz on that, so my devices won't work anywhere.


BT didn't mess up at all, it is a deliberate policy to integrate with the Complete Wifi discs. The problem is non compliant devices that don't work correctly with both bands having the same SSID.

All you need to do is temporarily turn off the 5Ghz until those devices have connected and then turn it back on again.

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Message 6 of 11

Re: Can I disable 5GHz on a BT wifi disc?

At a guess, the non compliant devices are trying to associate with the 5GHz BSSID and not the 2.4GHz BSSID, as both would be visible on the wireless segment as MAC addresses, so the devices fail to associate.

It would be interesting to know how similar the two BSSIDs (Wireless radio MAC addresses) are, as quite often it just a single digit different. The BSSID can normally be seen on wireless signal apps.

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Message 7 of 11

Re: Can I disable 5GHz on a BT wifi disc?

Hmmm - speaking admittedly as a non-sage, I'd still call it messed up not to make a Hub 2 available to existing devices such as Amazon Fire stick, HP printers and all sorts of other things that folk will have in their houses without having to disable the 5GHz. Your 'temporary' solution only works for a while, and the devices soon enough refuse to reconnect (power cut? simply time elapsed). It's idiotic of BT not to allow one to rename the 5GHz side if you need to. I dare say a few people will only have what you call 'compliant' devices (presumably devices bought in the last few months?), but it won't be many.

Mr Sage, please answer my question (posed as a non-sage, so please make allowances) which was: I have disabled the 5GHz side of my hub, and all my devices within range work fine until I add a range-extending disc. I'm guessing it is the fact that the disc is also dual band that is messing things up. So: can I also disable the 5GHz side of my disc (or do something else to it), because as soon as I power up the disc, the non-dual devices (such as Amazon Fire, HP printer, and other bits) stop working. I can't find a way to do it so I joined this 'Community', and I'd be grateful for your sage advice on doing so - you imply it can be done. I am asking for practical advice here. 

Dai

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Message 8 of 11

Re: Can I disable 5GHz on a BT wifi disc?

I'm afraid I don't have the wifi discs so can't comment regarding switching off 5Ghz on them.

I don't think its the age of the device causing problems, I have a Canon printer that is several years old and is single band which has no problem. Certainly not all single band devices have problems.

I'm not sufficiently familiar with the wireless protocols to know exactly what is happening but the router should ask the device which protocols it supports and the device should then respond.  If the device responds with 802.11b/g the router knows it only supports 2.4Ghz. If it responds 802.11b/g/n/ac it knows it supports 2.4 and 5Ghz The problem arises if it responds 802.11b/g/n as 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz both support 802.11n so unless the device indicates it is 2.4Ghz only, the router tries to connect at 5Ghz.

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Message 9 of 11

Re: Can I disable 5GHz on a BT wifi disc?

I said that in another post there are no settings in the discs,

 

i think these forums are a wast of time too no help what so ever 

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Message 10 of 11

Re: Can I disable 5GHz on a BT wifi disc?

Then don't bother posting

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