Opinion: It's Time To Ditch 2.4GHz WI-FI
Opinion: It's Time To Ditch 2.4GHz WI-FI
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.
It is always amazing how many people think their own specific situation should be used as the defining standard for the rest of the world.
5 ghz just doesn't get through stucco, concrete or even an inconveniently located furnace very well, nor does it reach nearly as far as a 2.4 ghz signal when only drywall and wooden studs are in the way. It would take 5 AP's at 5ghz to cover the same area as 2 at 2.4 ghz in my environment.
The great thing is that you can disable 2.4 ghz wifi on all your devices and the rest of us can continue to do what works for us.
65I did specifically mention either removing it entirely OR disabling it by default.
-29So the rest of the world should change for your convenience. Got it.
43
The problem with 5Ghz is that it doesn't go through walls very well compared to 2.4Ghz, resulting in APs having less range (or having to use several times more power)
48The max power a 5 gigahertz access point puts out is 1 watt where the max on 2.4 gigahertz is 0.3 watts. You are right though. You do have to do better about centrally locating the access point in your home in order to get the best performance from it. Because otherwise, one side will have good WiFi and the other side will have nothing or very weak WiFi.
Edit: Another benefit of that is that if somebody wants to crack your Wi-Fi network, they have to be physically closer to your house to do so. So, on like 60 gigahertz, where the signal doesn't leave the room you're in, it's basically as secure as Ethernet, because an intruder would have to break into your house to crack your Wi-Fi network.
-7
You sound like a USA citizen. There many places in the world where walls are made of concrete. 5Ghz doesn't penetration concrete.
In such cases, the only way to get 5GHz into every room will be passing cat5 cable in the wall and placing an AP.
Passing a cable in concrete walls requires a pipe in the wall, that was placed there when the house was built! But in many cases, the tunnels that exists are too narrow for cat5 and are already in use anyway.
So to fulfill your idea and still have WiFi we will need to raze to the ground whole cities and rebuild them.
Unless you are footing the bill, and take care of the CO2 emissions, just learn to disable 2.4GHz on your router.
23CAT5 is essentially dead. Highly recommended to use cat6/e as a minimum, or cat8. The world is beginning to switch to multi gig ethernet and CAT5 is simply insufficient for that.
Yes it will work at gigabit speeds and most things you do will not require more than gigabit but who knows what we will be running in 10 years and cat 6 can handle 10 gig over a pretty good distance which should be sufficient until it needs to be completely replaced.
That being said, unless you are currently running a multi gig ethernet setup and are running into bandwidth limitations on CAT5 or cat5e, there is no need to pull and replace what is already there. This advice is for new deployments.
2I agree with the sentiment, but I think cat5 is enough for at home deployment. My edge device isn't using 1Gb now, and it won't use 10 in ten years. Mostly because it may be cheaper to replace when needed than to deploy for future proofing.
For offices and such I agree, as the disruption of work for a few days may cost more than future proofing the net.
1
I think it’s a fair opinion, but a lot of “cheap” IoT devices only support 2.4GHz, so I do have both networks setup in my house for that reason…
22Yeah, I'm guessing that (if anything) 2.4Hz will be relegated to IoT device setup & control and little else
5Sounds like another plus for 5ghz to me.
0IOT devices should support 5 GHz and at least for me personally, if it doesn't support it, I don't buy it. Which also means that I have no IOT devices. LOL. My alarm system only supports 2.4 GHz, but it also has a cellular radio, so has never been connected to Wi-Fi in the time I've owned it.
-6Why would you refuse to buy IoT devices unless they're more expensive, use more battery and have less range? Like why, what does it give you to not have a 2.4 GHz network? It's not like it'll interfere with the 5 GHz network.
Like sure the 2.4 GHz spectrum is pretty crowded and much slower. But at this point that's pretty much all that's left on 2.4GHz: low bandwidth, battery powered devices at random locations of your house and on the exterior walls of your house and all the way across the yard.
It's the ideal spectrum to put those devices on: it's dirt cheap (they all seem to use ES8266 or ESP32 chips, lots of Espressif devices on the IoT network), it uses less power, goes through walls better, and all it needs to get through is that the button has been pressed. I'm not gonna install an extra AP or two when 2.4 reaches fine, just so that a button makes my phone ring and a bell go ding dong or a camera that streams and bitrates that you could stream on dialup internet.
Phones and laptop? Yeah they're definitely all on 5 GHz. If anything I prefer my IoT on 2.4 because then I can make my 5 GHz network WPA3 and 11ac/11ax only so I don't have random IoT devices running at 11n speeds slowing down my 5 GHz network.
18Well 5ghz requires more power, has less range, and needs its own antenna so for microcontrollers this makes it pretty pointless for devices that need range and low bandwidth for sending sensor updates, especially those that are battery powered. 5ghz can also have its own issues in cities if you have a lot of use of the DFS bands as well as being worse at traversing reinforced concrete.
Also, a 2.4ghz radio can also sometimes support other things like zigbee, BT, and BLE which can be used for other functions.
For what it’s worth, I have probably 50 WiFi devices and the majority of them are 2.4ghz sensors or switches and other low bandwidth tasks and I don’t have any issues, even when living in an apartment complex. If you are having issues you might need different hardware or more access points or something.
Anyway, all that to say that 2.4ghz definitely still has a lot of utility today.
1
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.
18What are your walls made of lead? Because mine is about a foot thick brick. And it still gets through.
-21Thick as a brick comes to mind.
1There 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.
1
Here's the thing. There are still plenty of devices that only have 2.4Ghz radios. There's some cheaper stuff still made today with just 2.4Ghz. So you'd just cut out a load of devices from working straight out. This kind of thing needs to be done slowly. 3G was very different because phone makers generally always want the more modern technology and phones that didn't have radios capable of 4g or better really are just rare now.
But, there's also just no reason to. Have 2.4Ghz available doesn't hurt you, if you're not using it. Any chipset with 5Ghz is not costing more to also support 2.4. They're just all pretty much single chip solutions these days and the aerial is usually just a coil on the board somewhere. If your device works on 5Ghz it will use 5Ghz.
I'd also argue in real terms 5Ghz isn't much better than 2.4Ghz in terms of channel space in places that need to respect DFS rules you generally only get one 80Mhz channel that will definitely work, and if you're using 802.11ax 80Mhz is really the minimum you want to get even remotely close to the advertised rate. Everything else useful is either DFS or limited power (at least here in the UK, and I don't recall seeing the limited power channel as an option). Now, I've generally setup two wifi APs in my house, one on the only non DFS channel, and the other on a DFS channel. That way if the DFS channel gets knocked out there's a fallback to the already congested "main" 5Ghz channel.
I think the main point is, why remove something that doesn't really affect you but may well affect others?
16For residential space sure. For campus deployments, 2.4 is really helpful to get coverage in places you couldn't justify additional antennas, or to blanket outdoor spaces between buildings. When you manage 10s of thousands of WAPs, in all sorts of crazy buildings and locations, you need every tool you can get.
11Sounds dumb as hell.
Even defaulting to 5GHz for any device that says it supports it causes all kinds of stability issues. I have to manually disable it for devices all the time.
11Very Odd, I found 5 gigahertz to be extremely stable, and have been running 5 gigahertz only for years now.
-7What are your walls made of? Mine are steel reinforced concrete. Standard building material where I live, since timber is just too expensive here.
Also I have three buildings (house, workshop, garage) on my suburban property and would like access in all three as well as out in the garden, since that's where I spend my weekends.
Also, I've just never seen the overcrowding issues a lot of people complain about. Maybe because we have different building materials here. 2.4Ghz will go through a concrete wall, but it loses a lot of power... and there's at least two of them (plus a good sized air gap) to my direct neighbours.
My access point does both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz at the same time. When I'm in the same room, I get 5Ghz. Walk through a doorway... it seamlessly switches to 2.4Ghz. You don't have to choose one or the other. You can do both and it will (if setup correctly, which mine was by default) pick the one with the strongest signal.
3
Two words: Backward Compatibility
8There comes a time when maintaining backward compatibility either introduces serious security flaws or becomes too great a load to maintain. Take the cellular networks shutting down 2G and 3G in the United States, for example. Yes, it maintains backwards compatibility, but 2G is highly flawed and easy to exploit. They sure as hell aren't doing it to free up the 700 kilohertz of bandwidth that it's been stuck on for 20 years.
-8
Edit: I am actually really surprised at how unpopular this opinion appears to be.
2.4Ghz WiFi works perfectly for me, possibly because I'm not using an "OEM" access point - but rather went out and spent a couple hundred dollars on a good one myself. Both at home in the suburbs and at our office in the city with several businesses in one building, 2.4Ghz works great.
In my experience 5Ghz only has acceptable performance if you have an access point in every internal room. I have zero interest in setting that up and like the fact that I can have reliable internet on my entire suburban block with a single (good) access point.
"Upgrading" to 5Ghz would mean replacing one access point with eight access points. No thanks.
As for wanting 400mbps... wtf for? I have a 10Gbps connection (wired) at the office and 50Mbps (wifi, 2.4Ghz) at home. Honestly can't tell the difference. Sure, large downloads are faster... but that's not something I do often especially at home. And if I did want that, I wouldn't be using wireless. Latency is far more important than bandwidth and wired has better latency.
5I get this opinion quite well.
The problem I've observed are devices that foolishly switch to 2.4ghz in a crowded space, such as the Nintendo switch. There really needs to be an extra check for devices sensitive to latency to never connect to a 2.4ghz network on a crowded channel unless it's the only option.
2Or just not include 2.4 gigahertz in the device at all.
-13I agree that 2.4 gigahertz is ultimately doomed, but we are easily 25 years away from moving out of that space and even then there will still be use cases for it.
If you were to suddenly disable all 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi connections across the world a large portion of the world would be stranded without Wi-Fi.
And since smart home devices and many other products that are actively being created required 2.4 gigahertz to function, any router that did not include 2.4 gigahertz would be e-waste before it was even taken out of the box.
1
I run both. 5Ghz for high bandwidth devices such as phones and laptops. 2.4Ghz for IoT stuff that needs to penetrate through walls and isn't using much bandwidth.
Because of this useful niche, it probably won't go away for a long time. Just like new burglar/fire alarm panels, UPSs, and network appliances that still use RS232 serial interfaces to program some settings.
1Slightly less crap take: open 2.5Ghz https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/broadband-division/broadband-radio-service-education-broadband-service for wifi data usage only, instead of the ffa on 2.4
1