topic Re: Band steering yay or nay? in Wireless

Band steering yay or nay?

yaypingworks — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 20:47:45 GMT

Does band steering move 2.4ghz clients to 5ghz even if the signal strength of the 2.4ghz is better?

If thats the case, why would I ever want to use this feature?

Re: Band steering yay or nay?

mloraditch — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 20:57:15 GMT

This is the Meraki explanation of how they run it: https://documentation.meraki.com/MR/Radio_Settings/Band_Steering

What you are saying is possible and in fact there is a note on the page that calls out specifically the behavior you are asking about and in general the thought is the benefits of 5Ghz (more bandwidth, less congestion) usually outweigh the signal strength issue.

Re: Band steering yay or nay?

aleabrahao — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 21:02:32 GMT

Personally, I never enable this feature. In the past, I've seen several problems related to user experience causing instability. So whenever possible, I prefer to create SSIDs in the specific band.

Re: Band steering yay or nay?

MerakiGnome — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 21:02:33 GMT

Hi @yaypingworks - depends….

Do you have many legacy clients utilising the 2.4Ghz spectrum? Band steering, as you’ve correctly pointed out, moves clients that are capable of 5Ghz to that frequency for a better user experience. Your wifi survey and respective design would provide a decent signal and coverage for both spectrums if required and band steering would be the icing on the cake with no compromises.

Re: Band steering yay or nay?

Ryan_Miles — Sat, 11 Jan 2025 01:51:30 GMT

I rarely (can't actually recall an actual time) I've seen in which band steering needs to be disabled. I typically only see things like 11r, 11w, or client balancing impacting legacy/poor performing clients.

Re: Band steering yay or nay?

Karsten Iwen — Sat, 11 Jan 2025 17:26:33 GMT

At least on my Office SSIDs, I never enable Band Steering. I don't enable 2.4.

Re: Band steering yay or nay?

Philip D'Ath — Sun, 12 Jan 2025 20:42:04 GMT

I'm with @alessandrodematos . I have had issues with 2.4Ghz only clients (especially IoT devices) that are unable to see the SSID when band steering is enabled (it prevents them from connecting to WiFi all together). I have gotten sick of dealing with these edge cases, so I rarely use band steering now.

Meraki's documentation specially calls out this issue:

https://documentation.meraki.com/MR/Radio_Settings/Band_Steering

"When band steering is enabled on an SSID, APs will stop advertising that SSID in 2.4 GHz beacons. Since 2.4 GHz-only clients that rely on a passive scan will not “see” that SSID in beacons, they might not be able to join this SSID unless they do an active scan or have been pre-configured with the SSID name and security settings (for example, a pre-shared key)."

Re: Band steering yay or nay?

Karsten Iwen — Sun, 12 Jan 2025 21:08:50 GMT

But the mentioned behavior is already quite old.

Re: Band steering yay or nay?

Philip D'Ath — Sun, 12 Jan 2025 21:26:48 GMT

Old but still a problem (at least a problem I run into). I would love it if every WiFi device would come with 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz radios, but I don't see this happening in the IoT market, which is trying to manufacture to the lowest price point.

Re: Band steering yay or nay?

Karsten Iwen — Sun, 12 Jan 2025 21:43:47 GMT

For IoT I also don’t always enable Band Steering. 2.4 is for IoT. And if I see a device in 5, I smile! My Dyson Vacuum robot is a device that is in 5GHz.

Re: Band steering yay or nay?

matt_uc — Mon, 13 Jan 2025 16:09:07 GMT

Is there a reason you don't break these devices out onto their own SSID that is 2.4GHz only with band steering off?

Re: Band steering yay or nay?

Philip D'Ath — Mon, 13 Jan 2025 19:14:14 GMT

I prefer to minimise the number of SSIDs.

Re: Band steering yay or nay?

BlakeRichardson — Mon, 13 Jan 2025 19:55:09 GMT

Given many phone manufacturers still only provide 2.4Ghz the chance of seeing 5Ghz in IOT is slim.

Re: Band steering yay or nay?

annmarie24us1 — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 17:05:54 GMT

From my experience the best option is to create SSIDs in the specific band.

Re: Band steering yay or nay?

MerakiGnome — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 17:46:03 GMT

Would agree - but then it depends….you don’t want to end up with too many SSIDs on your network

Re: Band steering yay or nay?

Karsten Iwen — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 18:13:51 GMT

I generally agree that this is a best practice. However, with tuned basic rates, the overhead of some more SSIDs is typically tolerable if functionality can be improved.