NWA130BE / Unable to configure band steering

omhoward

Hi,

I'm following up on a support ticket https://mysupport.zyxel.com/hc/requests/533878 - the technician suggested I followup here since they were unable to help me (and apparently have no way of engaging developers and Tier 3 support?!)..

Anyway, I'm reaching out to get help with enabling band steering on my standalone NWA130BE. The support tech suggested tweaking the dissociation threshold settings but I pointed out that changinging the dissociation threshold would not result in band steering.

1. Changing the threshold would have no impact on devices with a good signal.
2. Lowering the threshold would have the undesired effect of entirely cutting off 2.4 Ghz only devices with fair signal.
3. 5 Ghz signal will almost always be weaker than the 2.4.

Can someone here provide instructions on enabling it? I'm fine with using the ssh / cli interface if needed. If it's truly not available, can I open a feature request (or bug tracker) for this? Band steering should not require Nebula; it’s only a modified handshake.

Thanks!

Olu

Zyxel_Tina

Hi @omhoward,

Thank you for the detailed follow-up. We understand your goal is to proactively steer clients from 2.4 GHz to 5 GHz in standalone mode. Unfortunately, as mentioned in the support ticket, this function cannot be configured via the Web GUI and is only available under Nebula Cloud management.

To help us provide a more accurate suggestion, could you share a bit more about your environment or the specific application?

In the meantime, here are a few alternatives (other than the dissociation threshold) that may help you achieve a similar result:

1. Adjust Transmit Power: Lower the 2.4 GHz transmit power or set the 5 GHz transmit power at least 5 dBm higher. This helps dual-band clients prefer the 5 GHz signal when both are available.
   1. Navigate to Configuration > Wireless > AP Management to set the desired max output power for Radio 1 (2.4 GHz) or Radio 2 (5 GHz)
      1. 
2. Separate SSIDs: Manually configure and broadcast different SSIDs for the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks. This allows clients to manually connect to the 5 GHz network.

If these workarounds do not fit your needs, we can also submit your feedback as a feature request to consider adding band steering support in standalone mode in the future.