8 ms·

Meantime the broadband industry continues to exploit the confusion between 2G / 5G (cellular technologies) and 2GHz / 5GHz (WiFi technologies) and tell people (

by natch 5y ago

Meantime the broadband industry continues to exploit the confusion between 2G / 5G (cellular technologies) and 2GHz / 5GHz (WiFi technologies) and tell people (specifically my neighbors for example) that they will get faster speeds if they use the “5G” network exposed by their wifi router. If this article addresses that confusion I didn’t see where.

trangus_1985 5y ago
Hey, kinda complicated. The reason they're telling people to use the "5G" network on their access point isn't originated in confusion about 2G/5G (although for sure some people ARE confused). The reason they're doing it is that one way people test their internet is go to a download speed tester, and to prevent complaints and confusion, the ISP wants the fastest download possible. The 2.4GHz band is incredibly noisy, and even a microwave running in an adjacent unit can tank your throughput. 5GHz doesn't penetrate walls as well as 2.4GHz, which means less noise in your house. So an excellent, easy way (for average consumers) to test WAN throughput is by using the 5GHz network with line of sight. The intent and origination is not 5G confusion, but rather 5GHz's increased bandwidth due to a lower noise environment in the average user's house. And actually, in a way "get faster speeds if they use the “5G” network exposed by their wifi router" is true: if you live in dense housing, between all of the devices spamming on 2.4 and the fact that walls "quiet" 5GHz reasonably effectively, using 5GHz can actually be a marked improvement for many users!
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  What's really exciting for that sort of conflation is that wifi 6 does not support 6GHz, but wifi 6E does.
  - trangus_1985 5y ago
    You know, the only thing I actually care about is WPA 3. This stuff is fast enough. I mean yeah, it could be faster, more users, etc. I guess it doesn't realllly matter for home users, sure does for businesses and high usage environments. I'm just being frank though.
- axaxs 5y ago
  Not just noise..most modern routers allocate more bandwidth to 5ghz. So it is, in a literal sense, faster.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    > allocate more bandwidth Do you mean the channel width? Quite possible, but whether that matters depends on whether your internet is faster than your wifi. If you mean allocating portions of your internet bandwidth, that shouldn't happen should it? Any connection method should have access to all of it.
    - axaxs 5y ago
      Not overcomplicating things intentionally. There's other reasons of course...standards, shorter wavelengths, etc. Not referring to priority(second point) but capacity. Tri band routers as I'm sure you're aware dedicate two radios to the 5ghz range, and one to 2.4ghz. If you have say, gigabit internet, your capable bandwidth on 5ghz will be much, much faster, regardless if there's any 2.4ghz interference. If anyone who isn't a radios expert cares... I prefer dongknows when reading about networks. A lot of people for some reason don't seem to like him, but he does a great job of both putting things simply, yet giving enough backing technical specs to not treat the reader like a child. example: https://dongknows.com/home-wi-fi-explained/ https://dongknows.com/home-wi-fi-explained/
  - trangus_1985 5y ago
    Well, there's channel bonding, and wider channels, and a ton of stuff happening in the later standards (AX, 6) that I'm not up to date on, but... I'm pretty sure they get away with cramming more onto 5 largely because of the reduced noise.
    - dboreham 5y ago
      There is much more spectrum available in 5GHz and that's the overwhelming reason why it can be "faster". Doesn't go through stone walls though...
    - 5y ago
- coin 5y ago
  > The intent and origination is not 5G confusion, but rather 5GHz's increased bandwidth due to a lower noise environment in the average user's house Then why write 5 GHz as “5G”, dropping the unit?
- natch 5y ago
  I’m talking about cases where the broadband is the bottleneck, obviously. These are people who do not own a microwave or TV (they’re lucky to have a flush toilet) and their nearest neighbor is far enough away that the neighbor’s WiFi is undetectable, so the issues you mention do not apply. Yet they are told by an installer who does a physical visit to the place to put in a dish that choosing the 5GHz WiFi will make a difference. It won’t.
huachimingo 5y ago
Then you have the KB and KiB thingy.
- laumars 5y ago
  1000^n is only really used by HDD manufacturers to make their storage look larger. Everyone else uses 1024^n. XiB was invented to solve the confusion of everyone using XB but adoption was low and personally I think XiB is more confusing anyways (given people naturally assume XB is 1024^n). I think what confuses consumers more is byte vs bit, or more specifically, that the capitalisation of the ‘B’ matters.
  - belgesel 5y ago
    I do use 1000^n, but I agree that most people tend to use 1024^n. 1000^n kind of makes more sense since "kilo, mega" etc. are the actual SI prefixes for multiples of 1000s. I don't know who or what caused this chaos but 1000^n is definitely more human friendly.
    - throwaway2a02 5y ago
      > 1000^n is definitely more human friendly. It may be more human friendly, but 1024^n is more programmer friendly, especially at the low level.
      - varjag 5y ago
        Yes, powers of two match physical reality of binary computer architectures, while powers of ten in computing are a marketing concept.
    - laumars 5y ago
      1000^n might be more human friendly but computers aren’t decimal machines and a byte isn’t 10bits. 1024^n technically makes sense as a unit for binary machines that have 8bits to a byte. Everyone was happy with 1024^n convention in the 80s. The problem was HDD manufacturers got greedy and switched to 1000^n to make their drives sound like they had more storage. Thats what started the confusion.
NavinF 5y ago
> tell people (specifically my neighbors for example) that they will get faster speeds if they use the “5G” network exposed by their wifi router Of course you get higher speeds on 5ghz! How is this controversial? Most people are still on 802.11ac which only works on 5ghz. It's also impossible to find a free channel on 2.4ghz unless you live in the woods so you'd be sharing airtime with the 10 other APs and all their clients on one of the 3 non-overlapping channels in the 2.4ghz band. On 5ghz you can easily run 80mhz channels instead of just barely getting a stable connection on 20mhz.
- chrismorgan 5y ago
  Near the edge of a signal’s range, its performance and reliability can plummet as signal loss causes trouble. 5GHz has a much lower effective range than 2.4GHz. Thus, there are areas where the 5GHz network will be available, but perform far worse than the 2.4GHz, even with congested 2.4GHz. (Still worse, in some devices it can cause persistent problems until reboot. My last laptop, a Surface Book, had a Realtek chip, and I was using it near the edge of a router’s range for hours a day last year, and every few days it’d get into a broken state where packet loss was >20% and latency a few hundred milliseconds, even if I moved right next to the router. Connecting to different networks wouldn’t fix it; sleeping the laptop wouldn’t fix it; disabling and reenabling the thing in Device Manager would normally but not quite always fix it; rebooting would always fix it.)
  - NavinF 5y ago
    Yeah that sucks. Good WiFi performance pretty much requires having an AP every other room. Besides your hardware problems and signal power loss, devices don't cooperate to share spectrum and can't see all the nodes: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_node_problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_node_problem
cptskippy 5y ago
They're not exploiting anything, they didn't choose the names for cellular or WiFi technologies. At worst they'll say 5G instead of 5 Gigahertz but they're not attempting to confuse or conflate anything. Think of your internet connection like the water coming into your home. Your 2.4Ghz connection is like the water dispenser on your refrigerator, and 5Ghz is like the hose bib on the outside of your house. If the water authority says the water pressure is enough to fill up a 5 gallon bucket in 1 minute, someone will call up complaining that it takes 20 minutes to fill up a 5 gallon bucket from the water dispenser on their refrigerator. Your ISP telling you to use your 5Ghz Wifi to test, is like the water authority telling you to test with the hose bib on the outside of your house.
Nextgrid 5y ago
Having separate SSIDs for the two technologies is stupid in itself. In the majority of cases you're better off using the same SSID (and encryption settings) which means the client device can decide which one to use and whether to switch between the two. There are cases where the client device stubbornly clings on to the 5Ghz network despite the signal being so terrible that no packets come through (more specifically, the packets from the access point to the device are still received, but the packets from the device to the access point are lost), but unless you've identified that you're in this case and can't mitigate it any other way you're still better off using a single SSID.

by natch 5y ago

trangus_1985 5y ago

Hey, kinda complicated. The reason they're telling people to use the "5G" network on their access point isn't originated in confusion about 2G/5G (although for sure some people ARE confused). The reason they're doing it is that one way people test their internet is go to a download speed tester, and to prevent complaints and confusion, the ISP wants the fastest download possible. The 2.4GHz band is incredibly noisy, and even a microwave running in an adjacent unit can tank your throughput. 5GHz doesn't penetrate walls as well as 2.4GHz, which means less noise in your house. So an excellent, easy way (for average consumers) to test WAN throughput is by using the 5GHz network with line of sight. The intent and origination is not 5G confusion, but rather 5GHz's increased bandwidth due to a lower noise environment in the average user's house. And actually, in a way "get faster speeds if they use the “5G” network exposed by their wifi router" is true: if you live in dense housing, between all of the devices spamming on 2.4 and the fact that walls "quiet" 5GHz reasonably effectively, using 5GHz can actually be a marked improvement for many users!

Dylan16807 5y ago
What's really exciting for that sort of conflation is that wifi 6 does not support 6GHz, but wifi 6E does.
- trangus_1985 5y ago
  You know, the only thing I actually care about is WPA 3. This stuff is fast enough. I mean yeah, it could be faster, more users, etc. I guess it doesn't realllly matter for home users, sure does for businesses and high usage environments. I'm just being frank though.
axaxs 5y ago
Not just noise..most modern routers allocate more bandwidth to 5ghz. So it is, in a literal sense, faster.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  > allocate more bandwidth Do you mean the channel width? Quite possible, but whether that matters depends on whether your internet is faster than your wifi. If you mean allocating portions of your internet bandwidth, that shouldn't happen should it? Any connection method should have access to all of it.
  - axaxs 5y ago
    Not overcomplicating things intentionally. There's other reasons of course...standards, shorter wavelengths, etc. Not referring to priority(second point) but capacity. Tri band routers as I'm sure you're aware dedicate two radios to the 5ghz range, and one to 2.4ghz. If you have say, gigabit internet, your capable bandwidth on 5ghz will be much, much faster, regardless if there's any 2.4ghz interference. If anyone who isn't a radios expert cares... I prefer dongknows when reading about networks. A lot of people for some reason don't seem to like him, but he does a great job of both putting things simply, yet giving enough backing technical specs to not treat the reader like a child. example: https://dongknows.com/home-wi-fi-explained/ https://dongknows.com/home-wi-fi-explained/
- trangus_1985 5y ago
  Well, there's channel bonding, and wider channels, and a ton of stuff happening in the later standards (AX, 6) that I'm not up to date on, but... I'm pretty sure they get away with cramming more onto 5 largely because of the reduced noise.
  - dboreham 5y ago
    There is much more spectrum available in 5GHz and that's the overwhelming reason why it can be "faster". Doesn't go through stone walls though...
  - 5y ago
coin 5y ago
> The intent and origination is not 5G confusion, but rather 5GHz's increased bandwidth due to a lower noise environment in the average user's house Then why write 5 GHz as “5G”, dropping the unit?
natch 5y ago
I’m talking about cases where the broadband is the bottleneck, obviously. These are people who do not own a microwave or TV (they’re lucky to have a flush toilet) and their nearest neighbor is far enough away that the neighbor’s WiFi is undetectable, so the issues you mention do not apply. Yet they are told by an installer who does a physical visit to the place to put in a dish that choosing the 5GHz WiFi will make a difference. It won’t.

huachimingo 5y ago

Then you have the KB and KiB thingy.

laumars 5y ago
1000^n is only really used by HDD manufacturers to make their storage look larger. Everyone else uses 1024^n. XiB was invented to solve the confusion of everyone using XB but adoption was low and personally I think XiB is more confusing anyways (given people naturally assume XB is 1024^n). I think what confuses consumers more is byte vs bit, or more specifically, that the capitalisation of the ‘B’ matters.
- belgesel 5y ago
  I do use 1000^n, but I agree that most people tend to use 1024^n. 1000^n kind of makes more sense since "kilo, mega" etc. are the actual SI prefixes for multiples of 1000s. I don't know who or what caused this chaos but 1000^n is definitely more human friendly.
  - throwaway2a02 5y ago
    > 1000^n is definitely more human friendly. It may be more human friendly, but 1024^n is more programmer friendly, especially at the low level.
    - varjag 5y ago
      Yes, powers of two match physical reality of binary computer architectures, while powers of ten in computing are a marketing concept.
  - laumars 5y ago
    1000^n might be more human friendly but computers aren’t decimal machines and a byte isn’t 10bits. 1024^n technically makes sense as a unit for binary machines that have 8bits to a byte. Everyone was happy with 1024^n convention in the 80s. The problem was HDD manufacturers got greedy and switched to 1000^n to make their drives sound like they had more storage. Thats what started the confusion.

NavinF 5y ago

> tell people (specifically my neighbors for example) that they will get faster speeds if they use the “5G” network exposed by their wifi router Of course you get higher speeds on 5ghz! How is this controversial? Most people are still on 802.11ac which only works on 5ghz. It's also impossible to find a free channel on 2.4ghz unless you live in the woods so you'd be sharing airtime with the 10 other APs and all their clients on one of the 3 non-overlapping channels in the 2.4ghz band. On 5ghz you can easily run 80mhz channels instead of just barely getting a stable connection on 20mhz.

chrismorgan 5y ago
Near the edge of a signal’s range, its performance and reliability can plummet as signal loss causes trouble. 5GHz has a much lower effective range than 2.4GHz. Thus, there are areas where the 5GHz network will be available, but perform far worse than the 2.4GHz, even with congested 2.4GHz. (Still worse, in some devices it can cause persistent problems until reboot. My last laptop, a Surface Book, had a Realtek chip, and I was using it near the edge of a router’s range for hours a day last year, and every few days it’d get into a broken state where packet loss was >20% and latency a few hundred milliseconds, even if I moved right next to the router. Connecting to different networks wouldn’t fix it; sleeping the laptop wouldn’t fix it; disabling and reenabling the thing in Device Manager would normally but not quite always fix it; rebooting would always fix it.)
- NavinF 5y ago
  Yeah that sucks. Good WiFi performance pretty much requires having an AP every other room. Besides your hardware problems and signal power loss, devices don't cooperate to share spectrum and can't see all the nodes: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_node_problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_node_problem

cptskippy 5y ago

They're not exploiting anything, they didn't choose the names for cellular or WiFi technologies. At worst they'll say 5G instead of 5 Gigahertz but they're not attempting to confuse or conflate anything. Think of your internet connection like the water coming into your home. Your 2.4Ghz connection is like the water dispenser on your refrigerator, and 5Ghz is like the hose bib on the outside of your house. If the water authority says the water pressure is enough to fill up a 5 gallon bucket in 1 minute, someone will call up complaining that it takes 20 minutes to fill up a 5 gallon bucket from the water dispenser on their refrigerator. Your ISP telling you to use your 5Ghz Wifi to test, is like the water authority telling you to test with the hose bib on the outside of your house.

Nextgrid 5y ago

Having separate SSIDs for the two technologies is stupid in itself. In the majority of cases you're better off using the same SSID (and encryption settings) which means the client device can decide which one to use and whether to switch between the two. There are cases where the client device stubbornly clings on to the 5Ghz network despite the signal being so terrible that no packets come through (more specifically, the packets from the access point to the device are still received, but the packets from the device to the access point are lost), but unless you've identified that you're in this case and can't mitigate it any other way you're still better off using a single SSID.