topic Re: airtime utilzation in Wireless

airtime utilzation

bluesea2010 — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 06:33:03 GMT

From an airtime utilization perspective, I want to understand the impact of SSID design.

Currently, I have:

2 SSIDs configured as 5 GHz-only

4 SSIDs configured as 2.4 GHz-only

Does this design reduce 5 GHz airtime utilization compared to having all SSIDs broadcast on both bands?

In other words, does limiting some SSIDs to 2.4 GHz only help preserve 5 GHz airtime, or does the number of SSIDs itself still impact 5 GHz airtime regardless of band separation?

Thanks

Re: airtime utilzation

Radu96069 — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 13:50:25 GMT

Hi! The current setup is better than 4 SSIDs on all radios. You have less beacons and management frames on 5Ghz channel so better airtime utilization.

Re: airtime utilzation

pieterh — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 18:56:08 GMT

transmissions on the 5GHz band basically do not impact transmissions on the 2.4GHz band

that said, all SSID,s are published in the beacon packets, together with the band
-> the beacons packets grow longer when listing more SSID's , so there is some minimal impact!
and yes, as far as i know the 5GHz SSID's are also published in the 2.4GHz beacon packets
with this beacon info, the client can select the band for the SSID it wants to associate to.
but for data traffic airtime is calculated separately.