Force MAC OSX users to use 5Ghz

Question

Hi - we have a common SSID "Wifi Secure" for both 2.4 and 5Ghz bands.  We have an issue where MAC OSX devices  always seem to connect on 2.4 GHz, and there is no way of disabling 2.4 as an option (unlike on most PCs).  Is there any solution to help MAC devices prioritize 5 Ghz?

unknown · Answer

We set our band-balancing percentage to 1% for 2.4 and haven't noticed any problems with MacOS clients or iOS as well.

unknown · Answer

Disconnecting and reconnecting from the SSID can force it to re-evaluate the closest/best signal, I had this same issue with another wireless infrastructure solution and doing this got me connected to 5Ghz from a closer AP.

unknown · Answer

As far as I know, Mac OS is supposed to always prefer 5 GHz over 2.4. But in practice, it seems to also like to re-connect to the last AP,  instead of the strongest signal, which then may connect using 2.4GHz. 
Perhaps reducing channelization or power levels may help.

This year I just turned off 2.4 GHz completely on our main SSID, and that simplified things. I've left it on the guest network, on the off chance that some device doesn't support 5 Ghz, and needs 2.4 GHz, but those devices are rather rare these days.

See:  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206207

Selection criteria for band, network, and roam candidatesmacOS always defaults to the 5 GHz band over the 2.4 GHz band. This happens as long as the RSSI for a 5 GHz network is -68 dBm or better.

If multiple 5 GHz SSIDs meet this level, macOS chooses a network based on these criteria:

* 802.11ac is preferred over 802.11n or 802.11a.
* 802.11n is preferred over 802.11a.
* 80 MHz channel width is preferred over 40 MHz or 20 MHz.
* 40 MHz channel width is preferred over 20 MHz.