Airport Dual Band setup question

[richxps]

Hi All,

Can someone with the dual band router tell me what is the best way to set it up ? SHould i just leave the radio on auto or should i set up a seperate 5ghz network ?
I just want my mac, ipad and iphone and one windows laptop and xbox to all play nice on the router....
Thanks

 

[ftaok]

Hi All,

Can someone with the dual band router tell me what is the best way to set it up ? SHould i just leave the radio on auto or should i set up a seperate 5ghz network ?
I just want my mac, ipad and iphone and one windows laptop and xbox to all play nice on the router....
Thanks

I can't say the way that I set it up is the best, but here's what I do.

I have the 2.4 GHz network set for "auto". I have the 5 GHz network set for "11n".

This way, my aTV2 is on the fast network and all my other devices are on the 11a/b/g/n network. If folks come over and have an 11n device that's limited to 2.4 Ghz, then they can join in and get good speeds.

All of my devices can communicate with each other, so the dual-band aspects work perfectly.

 

[skorpien]

To add to that, I highly recommend giving your 5GHz band a unique SSID. I prefer to control which band my devices join. A unique SSID does not mean a separate network, just a different way of joining (think two wireless access points to the same network).

 

[richxps]

ok so what is the best way to do this, just enable the 5ghz and name it ? Is there anything else to be done in that section ?

Also if i leave the 2.4 on auto will that still pull 5ghz for anyone on it or will they have to connect to the 5ghz only ?

And last will giving the 5ghz a seperate name etc cause any issues with the router ?

Last but not least, my ipad that is connect to my dual band router does not work right with some of the apps, such as find my ipad, and AIM for some reason im not getting push notifications connected to this router and find my ipad cannot find my ipad on this router,BUT on my moms cheaper netgear it works fine. Is there some sort of security settings or something that needs to be set on the apple dual band ? I have the security set to wpa/wpa2 personl

Thanks for eveyones help.

 

[skorpien]

The 5GHz band is always on by default. It's just that it shares the same SSID as the 2.4GHz band thus giving clients with the ability to join the 5GHz band to do so automatically. However, it seems that some computers don't always choose the 5GHz band when it is available, so I prefer to give it a unique SSID.

Go to the Wireless Options in the Wireless tab of AirPort Utility and give the 5GHz band a different name than your 2.4GHz band.

By giving it a different SSID, you will have to explicitly state which band a computer joins. You can go into your Network Preferences and move the 5GHz band to the top of the networks list, but it's not guaranteed that it will always select that network if the two are available. I would delete the 2.4GHz network from that list to ensure it joins the correct one. Unless of course your coverage is not so great at other parts of your house and you still require the 2.4GHz network.

Unfortunately, I haven't a clue how to help with your iPad issues though.

 

[JRoDDz]

If you leave everything on Auto and do not name a separate 5ghz ssid, is there a way to tell whether a device connected on the 5ghz band?

 

[skorpien]

If you leave everything on Auto and do not name a separate 5ghz ssid, is there a way to tell whether a device connected on the 5ghz band?

If the device is a Mac computer, hold down Option while clicking the AirPort fan at the top of the screen. This will give you the transmit rate. If you see a number of 170 Mbps or lower, your computer is connected to the 2.4GHz band. If the number is between 170 and 300 Mbps, it's connected to the 5GHz band.

Similarly, you can go into your AirPort Utility and view the logs. Look for your device's wireless MAC address in the list of wireless clients and it will list the transmit rate as well.

This is all from the top of my head, so some information may not be exact.

 

[JRoDDz]

If the device is a Mac computer, hold down Option while clicking the AirPort fan at the top of the screen. This will give you the transmit rate. If you see a number of 170 Mbps or lower, your computer is connected to the 2.4GHz band. If the number is between 170 and 300 Mbps, it's connected to the 5GHz band.

Similarly, you can go into your AirPort Utility and view the logs. Look for your device's wireless MAC address in the list of wireless clients and it will list the transmit rate as well.

This is all from the top of my head, so some information may not be exact.

Awesome! That worked. I have a Macbook, clicking the fan with the option key gives out a lot of information. Thanks.