Dual Band NIC

texasheat

Ok so this weekend i picked up a tri band router and a dual band NIC. I understand that each band from the router has it's own SSID and password. The design being that you share the bands across your devices to de-stress the load on a single AP.

I bought a dual band NIC as well. My initial thoughts were connect to 2 bands at the same time and the software would decide which to use based on performance. Having set everything up i can see that is not the case.

So what then is the purpose of a dual band NIC? if you can't connect to 2 AP concurrently then it's one band at a time that has to be configured at each change....which makes it no better than a single band NIC.

I've tried to do some googleling but everything i found is talking about dual band routers, not NIC's. I might be ahead of the curve a little but surely there's someone who knows this stuff already.

Any advice you can give is greatly appreciated.

Pirusu

Dual-band adapters are just meant to increase compatibility amongst newer routers and to provide the performance advantages associated with the different bands.

2.4Ghz is the most common amongst routers, and has better penetration of walls, but is also the most common amongst many other devices, including cordless phones. Because of this, interference tends to be high.

5Ghz has a much broader frequency range, so you have fewer overlapping wireless channels, and because less devices use it, there is less interference.

Strictly put, a dual band NIC offers greater compatibility amongst access points. Don't have a 5Ghz router around? You can fall back on the 2.4Ghz. You're seeing frequent drops because of the higher interference on 2.4Ghz? You can use the 5Ghz and will (most likely) see greater performance.

texasheat

That makes since. Thanks for clarifying!

tsmvengy

I was under the impression that all bands should have the same SSID/password, so that your NIC can decide which one to connect to based on priority/performance.

Pirusu

tsmvengy wrote: »

I was under the impression that all bands should have the same SSID/password, so that your NIC can decide which one to connect to based on priority/performance.

You absolutely can, though personally I like being able to force my devices to use one band or the other. My phone, for example, prioritizes the 2.4ghz band on my router in my bedroom, because of the higher signal strength. But I still find that I get superior performance on the 5ghz band.

wunderbar

I keep them on the same SSID just for easy of use. assuming your router and devices have any kind of decent programming to it it'll try to connect to 5ghz first, which is what you wan, then fall back to 2.4 if there are no 5ghz radios or signal or it's too weak, etc.

I have one corner where I live where the 5ghz can't reach, but 2.4 is fine, so when my phone goes there it loses wifi for a couple seconds as it renegotiates, and done.