3 x Multy M1’s Mesh - 2.4 & 5ghz same Ssid?

CollinY

Hi,

I have installed 3 x M1 Multy’svin a Mesh network with my Virgin Media router in modem only mode.
should I have separate SSID’s for the 2.4ghz and 5ghz wifi networks? Am struggling a bit with getting my Sky Q box to connect and stay connected to the shared SSID so wondered what the negatives were to separating the networks? Most of my devices (ring devices, smart plugs etc) only connect to 2.4ghz anyway so it’s really TV, Sonos, Laptop, Phones that would connect to 5ghz.
thanks, Collin

Gondi

Hi Collin,

The benefit of using different SSIDs on 2.4 and 5GHz is that you can explicitly control which devices use 2.4 and which use 5GHz by selecting the desired SSID on each device. You might want to do this if you have a device which irrationally prefers associating on 2.4 instead of 5GHz. Another case would be if you are trying to perform wireless performance testing, or site surveys where you explicitly need to control the band under test.

The primary disadvantage of this approach is that you need to make a decision each time you add a new device as to which SSID it should use. It is slightly more complex to administer compared to a single SSID across both bands.

Also note that since coverage on 5GHz can be worse than on 2.4 (especially for consumer APs) you could end up with coverage problems on devices that are set to associate only with the 5GHz SSID.

Gondi

Hi Collin,

The benefit of using different SSIDs on 2.4 and 5GHz is that you can explicitly control which devices use 2.4 and which use 5GHz by selecting the desired SSID on each device. You might want to do this if you have a device which irrationally prefers associating on 2.4 instead of 5GHz. Another case would be if you are trying to perform wireless performance testing, or site surveys where you explicitly need to control the band under test.

The primary disadvantage of this approach is that you need to make a decision each time you add a new device as to which SSID it should use. It is slightly more complex to administer compared to a single SSID across both bands.

Also note that since coverage on 5GHz can be worse than on 2.4 (especially for consumer APs) you could end up with coverage problems on devices that are set to associate only with the 5GHz SSID.

CollinY

Thanks Gondi. I think I will try separating - see if it sorts my Sky box issue :) Cheers for your feedback.