Why is the wireless backhaul always on higher 5GHz channels?

[ammar]

Why does the MR2200 and RT2600 always establish wireless backlink using higher (100+) 5GHz channels? Because of this, the higher channel range of the MR2200 becomes unavailable for devices to connect, leaving only the lower channels for this purpose. The problem I face is that for some reason, not a single Android device in my house, except a 5 year old Chromecast, even sees this particular WiFi band. So whenever an Android device has to connect to the mesh point, it always connects to 2.4GHz.

The only way around this is through wired backhaul, which leaves both 5GHz bands on the MR2200 available for devices to connect. Does anyone know what the issue is here? Why don't my Android devices see the 5GHz-2 band of MR2200ac?

P.S I don't face this issue on my Apple devices. My iPhone 13 and 14, MacBook Air and Apple TV all happily connect to 5GHz-1 or 5GHz-2, whichever is available.

 

[fredbert]

Have you tried manually setting 5GHz-1 to a lower channel number? In fact you can manually set all wireless channels.

 

[ammar]

Have you tried manually setting 5GHz-1 to a lower channel number? In fact you can manually set all wireless channels.

My 5ghz-1 channel options are only from 100-161. Only 5ghz-2 has lower channels.

 

[fredbert]

Ok. I didn’t check, yeah you’re right. Have you tried changing the wireless options? A wired backhaul does work best, in my testing it was usually 2.5-3 times faster.

 

[fredbert]

@ammar A bit after the fact but I just got a WRX560 and was looking for the uplink speed test feature (still can't find it), I'm sure I used it recently, is it till there? **

Anyway, I saw this text in Wi-Fi Settings / Radio / Advanced.

I haven't played with it since my setup now (RT6600ax + WRX560) is now triple band for main and double for access points, which is the other way round for your RT2600ac + MR2200ac. But maybe switching the 5 GHz band might force '-1' to become sub-100.


** @Rusty any ideas?

 

[ammar]

@ammar A bit after the fact but I just got a WRX560 and was looking for the uplink speed test feature (still can't find it), I'm sure I used it recently, is it till there? **

Anyway, I saw this text in Wi-Fi Settings / Radio / Advanced.

View attachment 12257

I haven't played with it since my setup now (RT6600ax + WRX560) is now triple band for main and double for access points, which is the other way round for your RT2600ac + MR2200ac. But maybe switching the 5 GHz band might force '-1' to become sub-100.


** @Rusty any ideas?

That's interesting. I don't have that option on my setup. Even if I connect one MR2200ac with a wired uplink to the RT2200ac and connect the 2nd MR2200ac to the first one wirelessly, I still dont get this option even though in this scenario all 3 bands are available for a wireless uplink.

 

[fredbert]

If I have some time I'll see about digging out the old/failing RT2600ac and create a test wireless mesh with my, just switched off, MR2200ac. Have a play with the settings. It might give me an idea about how to re-use to do with them.

 

[fredbert]

Couldn't resist. You never said which version of SRM you are using: I'm using SRM 1.3.1.

Did a factory reset of both routers. Once they had finished setting up, I then connected my MacBook to the LAN of the RT2600ac (Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter). Did the minimum configuration to get into the SRM portal. Then added the MR2200ac as a wireless access point.

Once that was done, I then found the same settings as before, Wi-Fi Settings / Radio / Advanced.

Click the Settings button under Advanced. Selected the uplink to be 5 GH-2, which was sub-100. Now I have the RT's only 5 GHz channel on 48 and the MR's second on 48, it's first is seems to be ignoring my >100 selection.

 

[Shadow]

I will never understand why anyone would bother with wireless backhaul...

 

[fredbert]

I will never understand why anyone would bother with wireless backhaul...

Physically impossible to span cables, or can span but can’t win the argument, or could win the argument but there are bigger hills to die on (for an easier life).

BTW I found the uplink speed test information: select a mesh access point; click Details; go to Network page. This is only visible when the uplink is wireless.

Between my RT6600ax and WRX560 on wireless uplink it is showing ’strong’ and 1.45 Gbps (tx) / 1.93 Gbps (rx). My normal setup is 1 Gbps wired from each router to a gigabit managed switch. The NAS is also on the switch, using LAG. So in theory wireless clients are spread between two 1 Gbps switch ports when accessing the NAS.

Using slower wired with switch or direct between routers (either faster wireless or 2.5-2.5 Gbps wired)? Access to the NAS when the mesh is direct leads to a bottleneck of the RT6600ax‘s single 1 Gbps to the switch and NAS.

 

[ammar]

Couldn't resist. You never said which version of SRM you are using: I'm using SRM 1.3.1.

Did a factory reset of both routers. Once they had finished setting up, I then connected my MacBook to the LAN of the RT2600ac (Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter). Did the minimum configuration to get into the SRM portal. Then added the MR2200ac as a wireless access point.

Once that was done, I then found the same settings as before, Wi-Fi Settings / Radio / Advanced.

Click the Settings button under Advanced. Selected the uplink to be 5 GH-2, which was sub-100. Now I have the RT's only 5 GHz channel on 48 and the MR's second on 48, it's first is seems to be ignoring my >100 selection.

View attachment 12259

I'm on 1.2 still. I have a RT6600 and WRX560 coming next week so I'll be forced to update my current system to 1.3 in order to mesh them all. Thanks for testing this out!

-- post merged: 24. Feb 2023 --

I will never understand why anyone would bother with wireless backhaul...

I have a 7 bedroom house and it's impossible to just randomly lay down a CAT6 cable if I want to put a mesh point in any of the rooms.

 

[SmoothMoon]

If DFS matters you should change your additional WiFi points to use the DFS free 5 GHz band. In my case it would be 5 GHz-2 to avoid interrupts.