Xperia Z2 Wifi - Settings for 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz?

[WillHarris23067]

Sorry if this is a dumb question. I'm just about to ditch the crappy router that came free from my ISP and buy a decent dual band Netgear one.

Question is i seem to remember brousing the WIFI settings on my phone a while back and seeing a way of manually setting it to receive only 2.4 or 5Ghz, which i think i did to 2.4Ghz as that was the only frequency my router transmitted (not sure why i did that, but anyway). If i buy a 2.4 / 5Ghz dual band router will i have to set the phone so that it automatically chooses the frequency or does the phone do that itself anyway (i.e. does the Z2 automatically choose the best / fastest frequency)?

Cheers in advance.

[WillHarris23067]

Hi Sergio,

Thankyou for your detailed explanation which i am glad i read before buying a new router.

Just thinking, is it perhaps best to avoid dual band routers and just opt for a 2.4Ghz single band if the Z2 doesn't run any quicker on 5Ghz? My phone and tablet (both Z2) are the only wireless devices in my home as my PC is wired to the router via powerline sockets and Cat5. Most new routers seem to be dual band now but i can still buy a 2.4Ghz N300 router for less which may make sense if i'm not going to see the benefits.

Any advice much appreciated.

[BeadyEye · Accepted solution]

@SergioPL
Thats exactly what I do with the same Asus router. My problem I'm having with 4.4.4 is wifi drops that I hope lollipop will fix. 5ghz gives me much faster speeds, but I can only access that network in certain rooms of the house. So my phone ends up connecting to the 2.4ghz network automatically which sometimes gives me wifi drops where my phone shows a full connection to the network, but no data is being transferred through the router. But yes you are right. This is the exact setup Asus recommended to me when I phoned their support line

[WillHarris23067]

Many thanks!

[SergioPL1]

@BeadyEye I have lost of connection from time to time. It is not often... happens less than once every two - three weeks. It seems connected but no data is transferred. After reconnecting it works fine.

Our Xperias use single antenna / single channel mode. It means they can connect at 72 Mbps in 20 MHz network and 144 Mbps in 40 MHz channel network.

In 5 GHz band 40 MHz channel is normally used. In 2.4 GHz network 20 MHz channel should be used to avoid interference with other networks and maintain compatibility with earlier 20 MHz devices (b/g and early n). That explains why 5 GHz works faster.

On my Macbook Pro I have 3 antennas / 3 channel set up and using this router I can connect at 450 Mbps with real data transfer speed fluctuating between 270 and 330 Mbps. On 2.4 GHz network I can reach about 120 Mbps effective data transfer speed.

[BeadyEye]

@SergioPL I wish I would have asked you before I called Asus lol. That's pretty much what they told me and advised me to do. Would have saved me some time and aggravation lol.