If you own at least a decent 802.11n or 802.11ac router (i.e. Starting with 802.11n and continuing with 802.11ac, wireless technology in general became much more advanced than the prehistoric days of 802.11b and g. 6GHz should continue this trend, with even more frequency space (although with slightly worse propagation characteristics).
#IS WIFI 802.11 BGN 5G COMPATIBLE FREE#
The great thing about 5GHz (802.11n, 802.11ac, and Wi-Fi 6) is that because there’s much more free space at the higher frequencies, it offers 23 non-overlapping 20MHz channels. (If you have two laptops, you can copy a file between them to test the throughput of each channel.) But it’s probably faster to just switch between channels 1, 6, and 11 until you find one that works well.
There are tools that can help you find the clearest channel, such as Vistumbler. But if it’s a thin wall (or there’s lots of windows), you should use different channels. If there’s a brick wall between you and a neighbor, you could probably both use channel 1 without interfering with each other. Bear in mind that interior walls do a pretty good job of attenuating (weakening) a signal.
In an ideal world, you would talk to your neighbors and get every router to use channels 1, 6, or 11. It might be tempting to use a channel other than 1, 6, or 11 - but remember that you will then be the cause of interference (and everyone on 1, 6, and 11 will stomp on your throughput, anyway). In that situation, you would have to change to channel 11 to completely avoid the interference (though 6 would be pretty good as well). But depending on other wireless networks in your vicinity, one of those channels might be a better option than the others.įor example, if you’re using channel 1, but someone next door is annoyingly using channel 2, then your throughput will plummet. If you want maximum throughput and minimal interference, channels 1, 6, and 11 are your best choices. What channel should you use in a crowded area? If you use 802.11n with 20MHz channels, stick to channels 1, 6, and 11 - if you want to use 40MHz channels, be aware that the airwaves might be congested, unless you live in a detached house in the middle of nowhere. 802.11 a, b, or g) you should always try to use channel 1, 6, or 11. And as you can probably imagine, using overlapping channels is bad - in fact, it’s the primary reason for poor throughput on your wireless network.įortunately, channels 1, 6, and 11 are spaced far enough apart that they don’t overlap. As you’ve probably worked out, 14 lots of 20MHz is a lot more than 100MHz - and as a result, every 2.4GHz channel overlaps with at least two, if not four, other channels (see diagram above). These 100MHz are separated into 14 channels of 20MHz each.
802.11ac, which debuted in 2013, is driving adoption of 5GHz, helped along by adoption of 2020’s 802.11ax / Wi-Fi 6 - but thanks to backwards compatibility, dual-radio routers and devices, and lower-cost peripherals with less expensive chipsets, 2.4GHz will continue to reign for a while.Īll versions of Wi-Fi up to and including 802.11n (a, b, g, n) operate between the frequencies of 24MHz. Channels 1, 6, and 11įirst of all, let’s talk about 2.4GHz, because even in 2021, the majority of Wi-Fi installations still use the 2.4GHz band in some way. Rather than asking people to continue playing “Guess the relevant Wi-Fi standard,” somebody decided it would be easier to just call the current major consumer version “Wi-Fi 6.” There’s an even newer standard, Wi-Fi 6E, which supports signals in the 5-6GHz band, but the Wi-Fi 6E hardware in-market is a rather poor deal at present. If you’re wondering why we moved to branded naming as opposed to the standard number + a signifying letter combination, it’s because there are a lot more low-level updates and specification changes to 802.11 than there used to be. The fastest version of Wi-Fi currently available is branded as “Wi-Fi 6E,” aka 802.11ax-2021.