5ghz preference

[leehancock]

Is there any way to steer client devices toward using the 5ghz band rather than not offering 2.4 on the access point? Almost all of the devices in our network tend to connect at 2.4 even though they're perfectly capable of 5.

[leehancock]

Thanks for the information. We have a bunch of Wyse c90le7 terminals with 802.11n cards that I just cant ever get to connect on the 5ghz band. I checked in the driver options and there's no setting for preference.

[ramprakash]

If they don't get bandsteered and no configuration option in WNIC then making 2.4 ghz wlan NOT available is another option to ponder upon.

[santosh_bittu]

The best method to check if the problematic clients connect to the 5 GHz network is to deploy an SSID specifically on the 5 Ghz radio of the AP and check if the client is able to connect successfully.
To do this, create a Test SSID and under WLAN Group create a New group and enable only this Test SSID under this Group. Please ensure that this Test SSID is unchecked under Default WLAN group's. Once this is done you will have to deploy this WLAN group on the AP, this can be done under Configure > AP > Select the AP on which you want to deploy the SSID > WLAN Group > Select the Test WLAN group that was created by you.

We do band steering via two ways as below:

Refusing Authentication and process is outlined as below
If client requests authentication on 2.4 GHz, and
AP previously detected the client on 5 GHz, and
Client does not appear to be in distress
Sufficient RSSI [set for this WLAN on 5ghz via CLI] on 5 GHz within the past minute, or else
Sufficient RSSI [set for this WLAN on 2.4 ghz via CLI] on 2.4 GHz within past minute, and
AP is not a Mesh AP, then
Refuse authentication on 2.4 GHz.

Withholding Probe Responses and process is outlined as below :

If client is probing on 2.4 GHz, and
AP previously detected the client on 5 GHz, and
One of the following:
AP has not detected probes from client in past minute, or
Client does not appear to be in distress (see Auth Refusal), and
AP is not a Mesh AP, then
Withhold probe response on 2.4 GHz
Note: clients try to authenticate even when the AP does not respond to its probes, so withholding probe reponses is not sufficient to steer clients.

Some AP and ZD CLI commands to end this topic.
AP CLI:
get band-steering-rssi-thresh wlan
set band-steering-rssi-thresh wlan
ZD CLI
remote_api_cli -A “get band-steering-rssi-thresh wlan”
remote_api_cli -A “set band-steering-rssi-thresh wlan ”

Hope this helps, all the best.

[brent_sergent]

Note the remote command from ZD is remote_ap_cli ( -A is all AP's) 
The band steering command isn't available either on AP or ZD in later versions or not at all.

[chris_fuchs]

Is there any way to disable band-steering?

We have a lot of handheld terminals running Windows CE and have constant client connectivity issues whenever we use 5Ghz. I'd rather not remove 5Ghz (current workaround) if I could disable band-steering to see if this is the cause....