Combining Bands into One SSID?

Rezalis · August 28, 2017

I recently bought this router Amazon Link while it was on sale and it has three bands. I have currently set up the system using each band (2.4, 5, 5) on a different SSID. If I were to set the SSID of each band the same along with same password, would I still receive take advantage of having three bands? Or will the router only connect the devices to one band?

AnonymousGuy · August 28, 2017

Nope, you can't do that. Dual 5Ghz bands are retarded IMO and mostly a marketing gimmick to inflate the "total speed" figure.

knightslugger · August 28, 2017

9 minutes ago, Rezalis said:

I recently bought this router Amazon Link while it was on sale and it has three bands. I have currently set up the system using each band (2.4, 5, 5) on a different SSID. If I were to set the SSID of each band the same along with same password, would I still receive take advantage of having three bands? Or will the router only connect the devices to one band?

If you do that, whatever device is being used will connect to the strongest signal it "hears".

Rezalis · August 28, 2017

Is a tri-band router really worth it then? I was looking at the Google mesh system and I feel like that might be better for low-latency games. Link

NZLaurence · August 28, 2017

The other thing to look at is you cannot mix standards on the same device connection. For that unit it has 2x 5GHz [11an+ac] and 1x 2.4GHz [11bgn] however if your device is connecting on 802.11ac then you cannot have that same device connected at 802.11an at the same time.

Where a tri radio device is good is when you have some older devices that might only be 802.11n spec as well as some newer 802.11ac devices. On a single 5GHz radio device that would mean your entire network would fall back to 802.11n to allow for the older device. On a dual 5GHz radio device this means only one radio needs to be on 802.11n the other one can be on 802.11ac.

On most consumer devices you need to manually deal with the connections using different SSID's. If you set them all to the same SSID then its random which it will connect to.

If you have a better device (think enterprise) then they will use something called band steering. This is where the router will control which device its connected to based on which will give the best over all stability and speed. You set one SSID and the router deals with it all. For example, Aerohive Wireless or Ruckus Wireless.