2.4GHz wifi is not suitable for two big reasons, interference and low bandwidth. 2.4GHz wifi in any kind of suburban or city environment and sometimes even in rural will be congested with other networks, microwaves, other appliances, etc causing massive speed degradation or fluctuations. The range of 2.4GHz is just too large for all the equipment that uses it in today’s world. In my previous apartment complex for example my phone could see 35 distinct 2.4GHz wifi networks while only 3 at max can operate without interfering with each other. In that same building i could only see 13 5GHz networks. Which brings me to the second issue of bandwidth
2.4GHz at least here in the US only has channels 1, 6, and 11 that will not interfere with each other. if anyone puts their network between these three channels it will knock out both the one below and the one above. Channel 3 would interfere with both channels 1 and 6 for example. By going up to 5GHz you have many more free channels, fewer networks competing for those channels, and higher bandwidth channels allowing for much higher throughput. 2.4GHz allows 40MHz wide channels which in isolation would offer ~400mbps, but you will never see that in the real world.
Personally, i think OEMs should just stop including it or have it disabled by default and only enable it in an “advanced settings” area.
Edit: I am actually really surprised at how unpopular this opinion appears to be.
Until I can get a decent 5Ghz signal on the other side of a wall from the router, I can’t do without 2.4Ghz.
What are your walls made of lead? Because mine is about a foot thick brick. And it still gets through.
Don’t know about op, my 1950’s home is a half inch of plaster over chicken wire over wooden lattice. My options are 2.4GHz or ethernet. And ethernet for phones is problematic.
That chicken wire could have been intentionally designed to absorb 5ghz signal, and is death to it. Literally any other material would be fine up to 3 rooms away depending on the noise floor in the space. 6ghz /might/ be able to punch through depending on the width of the space between the wires though, and might be worth exploring in your case.
Chicken wire in walls is something that came WAY before wifi. It’s used for plaster in much the same way rebar is used for concrete.
No, i know, but my point was if you were designing a wall material to block 5ghz you would end up with plaster on wire mesh. Couldn’t have been better if it were on purpose
I bet that could be disabled if you somehow removed any path to ground from that chicken wire.
My guess is there are a few conductive points that are attached to materials that can dissipate electrical energy, which would turn the chicken wire into a faraday cage.
Without those conductive points, it would not function as a faraday cage or at least not well enough to significantly attenuate Wi-Fi.
LOL, yeah. My wife and I like to call it our personal faraday cage. If we didn’t have windows in every room I’m guessing even our cell phones would struggle.
There are bricks of various kinds, and they can very well be challenging for Wifi. Concrete is even harder, and if you have reinforced concrete, good luck.
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