Dual Band AP - Can I put the same SSID on 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz?

I'm extending my home network with a new AP that I'll place in a place where the main wifi router signal is not available, connected via LAN (Cat6).

I've read elsewhere about using the same SSID and PWD to extend the exisiting wifi and have the devices "roam" from one AP to the next. My new AP (Netgear EX6100, also found as AC750) allows setting different SSIDs for the 2.4 and 5 Ghz band - and actually that's the "default" behavior.

What issues might I run into if I configure both radios with the same SSID? Will the devices that support 5 GHz use the higher speed band?

The devices I'm going to connect are quite varied; the "main" ones (but by no means the only ones) are:

iPhone 6 & 5S
MacBook Pro (non-retina), "Mid 2012"
iPad 2 & iPad Air
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1
Asus UL20A laptop
Mac Mini (2006 or so)
Nintendo Wii
Multimedia player, etc...

Any tips/recommendations more than appreciated

Regards

-- JJ

JJarava

Posted 2014-11-13T13:38:29.637

Reputation: 393

No; 802.11 doesn't support this. I mean you can use the same SSID without a problem you just won't be able to tell the difference. What I do personally is use different SSIDs then use the same password on both. This way if I know the device supports 802.11ac I can use that SSID if it doesn't then I use my 802.11n SSID. – Ramhound – 2014-11-13T13:43:05.443

Answers

There is no issue with using the same SSID and PWD for the 2 channels. If you use it this way you can take advantage of the 5ghz when you're local to the AP, but fall back to the 2.4Ghz when interference it too much.

However, in some cases, if your SSIDs are the same - you will have a wireless connectivity problem when you are connecting client that was 2.4Ghz adapter ONLY. (adapter gets confused).

Referring to the above I would recommend to use different SSIDs for the 2 channels (troubleshooting purposes too).

Radu Dramba

Posted 2014-11-13T13:38:29.637

Reputation: 144

If you have multiple access points (called BSSIDs), You're supposed to have all the SSIDs set to the same name on a Wi-Fi LAN. Clients can then automatically roam between them.

The problem is that many Wi-Fi drivers do a rather poor job of selecting the best BSSID to connect to. You'll often find it connected to strong BSSID on 2.4GHz that has a lot of interference when a weaker but faster 2.4GHz or 5GHz band BSSID is available. Most operating systems don't provide the user with a way to select a particular BSSID to connect to, or even show that there are different BSSIDs in a scan. The way to get around this client problem is to give each BSSID a different SSID name.

Alex Cannon

Posted 2014-11-13T13:38:29.637

Reputation: 207