Tell me about 5GHz

[dattaway]

I've been using 2.4GHz since the beginning of wifi time. Last month, I bought a SGS4 phone and noticed the Android Wigle app has been pulling in four times the access points as my SGS2 phone. Whoa. It seems my new phone does 5GHz, which may be partly responsible...even if a little. I do know its radio is much more sensitive. Apparently, I have been living under a faraday shielded rock for the last year.

So how popular is 5GHz where you live? See much more of it over the years? I still have an old Linksys router at home like some people have tube televisions. Should I upgrade to a new router? What is good? Help a wardriver out.

[bigstape]

5GHz is supposed to have shorter range than 2.4Ghz, but the spectrum is less crowded. Personally, I'm not giving up my 2.4GHz router yet, especially since I just hacked up a Linksys WRT54GL as a repeater to cover my whole yard (chores are more tolerable with internet radio). I don't see any 5GHz in my immediate neighborhood yet, but I do see some in more densely populated and more commercial areas. I'm guessing 5GHz might be better for someone with an apartment, while 2.4GHz might be better for someone with a house and yard. So, it's all situational.

[icurnet]

5GHz is supposed to have shorter range than 2.4Ghz, but the spectrum is less crowded. Personally, I'm not giving up my 2.4GHz router yet, especially since I just hacked up a Linksys WRT54GL as a repeater to cover my whole yard (chores are more tolerable with internet radio). I don't see any 5GHz in my immediate neighborhood yet, but I do see some in more densely populated and more commercial areas. I'm guessing 5GHz might be better for someone with an apartment, while 2.4GHz might be better for someone with a house and yard. So, it's all situational.

Actually, I chose A over BGN because of channel overlap in my area. The A range is less but works better and my AP (a Tenda Dual Band) will let me assign different SSID's to each radio band...and it was about $40 at Micro Center.

[mtbrandao]

Are you sure that all those new networks are 5ghz? Check the frequencies

When I changed my phone, most of new networks I can see are 2.4 that I could not see due my old phone having a weaker antenna.

[dattaway]

Are you sure that all those new networks are 5ghz? Check the frequencies

When I changed my phone, most of new networks I can see are 2.4 that I could not see due my old phone having a weaker antenna.

I'm seeing a LOT of new channels, like 36 showing up. I used to only see 1 through 11 and the occasional illegal 14. Apparently the google fiber routers have these channels as I'm seeing this in the gigabit neighborhoods. I'm totally ignorant what all this is about, but I'm about to learn in a few months when I get hooked up.

[mtbrandao]

Yeah, channels different from 1-14 are 5ghz

Where I live they are rare.

[khmann]

to me 5GHz seems to be growing fast. On average in reasonably expensive neighborhoods I see easily 10% of networks in 5GHz... however many of these neighborhoods are already scanned, so often 75% of my "new discovered" networks are on 802.11a channels.

the problems are weaker signals, less device choices, and many more channels. Also a high-gain antenna to cover 5.2-5.8 GHz is not easy to come by - that's 665MHz of spectrum compared to 802.11b/g's 70MHz. Because of overlap, you can scan most of 2.4GHz in about 5 channels ~= 1 second. In 5GHz, you've got 21 "standard" channels to cover in the US + a bunch of potential turbo and narrow band modes. I don't have good antennas yet, but it wasn't until I was running 4 radios simultaneously that I felt I was able to drive through even a slightly-dense area at a reasonable speed.

I dream of being rich and using 3 different antennas with pre-amps feeding splitters driving like 8 atheros ath9k cards in full 3stream mimo... : ) but for now I'm having success with some old miniPCI cards and homemade antennas.

[dattaway]

I have noticed an invasion of 5GHz in the last few months. Google Fiber's network boxes are broadcasting both frequencies with high power. And a good portion of our city is now lit up. That means two new hits for each location.

[bigstape]

I dream of being rich and using 3 different antennas with pre-amps feeding splitters driving like 8 atheros ath9k cards in full 3stream mimo... : ) but for now I'm having success with some old miniPCI cards and homemade antennas.

Heh, you seem to be doing pretty well with what you have.