Moderated How can I tell if I am on my 2G or 5G WiFi band?
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Richard B. McDonald
Hi!
I am using JFW 2020 and Windows 10. My WiFi router broadcasts on both the 2G and the 5G bands. My PC is supposed to automatically connect to whichever of these two WiFi bands is the “best.” So, when I am on the PC how can I tell which of these two bands it is currently using?
Thanks! Richard |
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Jason White
The question is answered here: Running “netsh wlan show interfaces” from PowerShell is probably easiest.
From: main@jfw.groups.io <main@jfw.groups.io>
On Behalf Of Richard B. McDonald via groups.io
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2023 8:50 AM To: jfw@groups.io Subject: How can I tell if I am on my 2G or 5G WiFi band?
Hi!
I am using JFW 2020 and Windows 10. My WiFi router broadcasts on both the 2G and the 5G bands. My PC is supposed to automatically connect to whichever of these two WiFi bands is the “best.” So, when I am on the PC how can I tell which of these two bands it is currently using?
Thanks! Richard |
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Under Windows 10 you can also get this information via Settings, Network & Internet, then choosing the properties button for your active WiFi connection. The Band being used is near the bottom of that Properties page.
Under Windows 11, this is shown at the very top of the Network and Internet settings page, under the heading "Properties" where you are told whether you've defined the network connection as Public versus Private then immediately under that is the Band being used. -- Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13) It’s not lack of contact with the world off campus that leads to the liberal views common in academia — it’s being trained to think critically and practicing this craft daily as we look at the world around us that makes us the libs conservatives so dislike. ~ Eliot A. Brenowitz, Seattle; New York Times, Letters, Tales of Town and Gown: Is the Campus Isolated?, August 20, 2022 |
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Mike Pietruk
What are the pluses and minuses of using either one of these transmission
bands? From a practical standpoint, does it really matter and when and why would one choose to switch from what they are on now? Is this a marketing gimmick or a potential benefit that one needs to consider? |
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Richard B. McDonald
The 2G band has a stronger signal than does the 5G band, but the 5G band has
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a significantly faster data transmission rate than does the 2G band. -----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io <main@jfw.groups.io> On Behalf Of Mike Pietruk Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2023 7:09 AM To: main@jfw.groups.io Cc: jfw@groups.io Subject: Re: How can I tell if I am on my 2G or 5G WiFi band? What are the pluses and minuses of using either one of these transmission bands? From a practical standpoint, does it really matter and when and why would one choose to switch from what they are on now? Is this a marketing gimmick or a potential benefit that one needs to consider? |
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K0LNY
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In my windows 10 and windows 7, I have it set to
show in the task bar.
So I can do insert B and arrow to the network and
it says which one I'm connected to.
Glenn ----- Original Message -----
From: Brian Vogel
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2023 9:07 AM
Subject: Re: How can I tell if I am on my 2G or 5G WiFi
band? Under Windows 11, this is shown at the very top of the Network and Internet settings page, under the heading "Properties" where you are told whether you've defined the network connection as Public versus Private then immediately under that is the Band being used. -- Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13) It’s not lack of contact with the world off campus that leads to the liberal views common in academia — it’s being trained to think critically and practicing this craft daily as we look at the world around us that makes us the libs conservatives so dislike. ~ Eliot A. Brenowitz, Seattle; New York Times, Letters, Tales of Town and Gown: Is the Campus Isolated?, August 20, 2022 |
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K0LNY
Also, even though the 5G sends faster traffic, it might be more likely to
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get obstructed, and as radio waves go, the longer the wave length, the further it will go, so the 2 G may travel out a bit further. Just like a CB radio will get further than the FRS radio service. Glenn ----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard B. McDonald" <richardbmcdonald@...> To: <main@jfw.groups.io> Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2023 9:13 AM Subject: Re: How can I tell if I am on my 2G or 5G WiFi band? The 2G band has a stronger signal than does the 5G band, but the 5G band has a significantly faster data transmission rate than does the 2G band. -----Original Message----- From: main@jfw.groups.io <main@jfw.groups.io> On Behalf Of Mike Pietruk Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2023 7:09 AM To: main@jfw.groups.io Cc: jfw@groups.io Subject: Re: How can I tell if I am on my 2G or 5G WiFi band? What are the pluses and minuses of using either one of these transmission bands? From a practical standpoint, does it really matter and when and why would one choose to switch from what they are on now? Is this a marketing gimmick or a potential benefit that one needs to consider? |
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On Wed, Feb 22, 2023 at 10:20 AM, K0LNY wrote:
Also, even though the 5G sends faster traffic, it might be more likely to- I've found the 5 GHz channel on wireless routers to be far more "fragile" than the 2.4 GHz channel is. The newest device I just got for entirely wireless internet selects the channel to use automatically. The only devices that end up using 5 GHz are those in the same room with the router. All the rest of the house gets assigned 2.4 GHz, which is unsurprising. Ultra fast, but flakey, does not beat plenty fast, but rock solid. -- Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13) It’s not lack of contact with the world off campus that leads to the liberal views common in academia — it’s being trained to think critically and practicing this craft daily as we look at the world around us that makes us the libs conservatives so dislike. ~ Eliot A. Brenowitz, Seattle; New York Times, Letters, Tales of Town and Gown: Is the Campus Isolated?, August 20, 2022 |
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Andy
5g is faster, but 2g has more range.
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Andy ----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Pietruk" <pietruk@...> To: <main@jfw.groups.io> Cc: <jfw@groups.io> Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2023 7:09 AM Subject: Re: How can I tell if I am on my 2G or 5G WiFi band? What are the pluses and minuses of using either one of these transmission |
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David Diamond
When I was having trouble with my Victor stream 2nd gen. Human wear told me it was because my modem for cable was fiber and the stream used 2 G, thus was slower and maybe just not capable with my modem. Now mobile carriers have gone to 5 G for the reasons mentioned below. Also apparently the new stream is 5 g ready. |
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K0LNY
I think that was a cop-out.
Audio is pretty low band width in content, it
shouldn't have trouble on a lower frequency than 2.4 G.
Glenn ----- Original Message -----
From: David Diamond
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2023 11:22 AM
Subject: Re: How can I tell if I am on my 2G or 5G WiFi
band? When I was having trouble with my Victor stream 2nd gen. Human wear told me it was because my modem for cable was fiber and the stream used 2 G, thus was slower and maybe just not capable with my modem. Now mobile carriers have gone to 5 G for the reasons mentioned below. Also apparently the new stream is 5 g ready. |
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Mike Pietruk
Richard
Thanks for explaining the difference between the 2 bands. So, if speed is a concern, one would try using the higher speed initially and only switch to the lower band if there were signal disruptions indicating that one's wifi card couldn't reliably hang onto the signal. Would local congestion ppotentially play a part in the choice of band? |
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David Diamond
Of course it was a cop out. Smile. My stream worked fine on 5 G and now fibre network. In life you will find those who just parrot what they’ve been told. It is one of my pet peeves. “It won’t work.” Reply, “Have you tried it?” Answer, “No, I just know it won’t work.” Then when after coaxing them to try and they find out they were wrong, they swore. |
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On Wed, Feb 22, 2023 at 12:22 PM, David Diamond wrote:
Now mobile carriers have gone to 5 G for the reasons mentioned below. Also apparently the new stream is 5 g ready.- You're conflating two different things, and it's easy to do. WiFi is one thing, and even through to today the two most commonly used frequency bands are either 5 GHz or 2.4 GHz, and that's only between your device and the router. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the speed (or lack thereof) of the incoming trunk line of fiber-optic, cable, or [even though there's no line] wireless internet connectivity. WiFi lives on the IEEE 802.11 specification that keeps evolving. There's even 6th generation WiFi, commonly known as A X, as opposed to older standards like wireless A, G, N, and AC. Cellular phones have had 2G, 3G, 4G, 4G LTE, and 5G, so far with 6G on its way. This has nothing to do at all with WiFi, it's cellular technology standards, which are their own thing. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_phone_generations and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6G_(network) It's best not to confuse the two different things: WiFi generations and Cellular Network generations. They have no direct connection to each other. And it's best to talk about WiFi as 5 GHz or 2.4 GHz, or even 5 GHz and 2 GHz (though that's not as accurate). It avoids confusion with cellular telecommunication network generations. -- Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13) It’s not lack of contact with the world off campus that leads to the liberal views common in academia — it’s being trained to think critically and practicing this craft daily as we look at the world around us that makes us the libs conservatives so dislike. ~ Eliot A. Brenowitz, Seattle; New York Times, Letters, Tales of Town and Gown: Is the Campus Isolated?, August 20, 2022 |
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David Diamond
Thanks. I am the first to admit I don’t know everything and, the only way to learn is to put stuff out there without of course being confrontational. |
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Richard B. McDonald
Hi Mike,
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Your understanding is essentially correct. Supposedly, a modern WiFi adapter (the "card" in your computer that receives/transmits on the WiFi network) will choose whichever band (2.4G or 5G) has the fastest and most stable signal. Supposedly, also, the WiFi router (the thing that transmits/receives over the WiFi network the Internet connection brought to your place via cable/fiber/satellite broadcasts in both 2.4G and 5G. It is true that the 5G band is a weaker signal, but it is faster than the 2.4G band. That means that to get a decent signal (like "4 bars") you need line of sight to the router and not much farther than about 40 feet away, typically. The 2.4G band has a much farther range and is better at transmitting/receiving through things like walls. But, that 2.4G band is about 1/2 the speed of the 5G band. As far as "local congestion" slowing things down, if by that you mean multiple devices (phones, PCs, laptops, TVs, Alexas, etc.) on the WiFi network, yes the more of them that there are the slower everyone's speed will be. Now, on a very technical level, I am not really sure if these bands operate like separate lanes on a freeway. For example, suppose a bunch of devices are all on the 2.4G band, and no one is on the 5.g band. Everything else being equal, I am not sure if switching to the 5G band would make things faster for you. It might be the case that instead of operating like two separate lanes on a freeway all the traffic theoretically flows in the same one lane. Supposedly, a modern router has two transmit/receive antennas: one for 2.4G and one for 5G. That would seem to indicate the two separate lanes analogy. But, I suppose that all the traffic - once past whichever antenna it is coming/going through and once inside the router - all ends-up in the same pathway; sort of like the two separate lanes merging. This is a fascinating question. I would love to know the answer! I bet some one on this list knows the answer! HTH, Richard -----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io <main@jfw.groups.io> On Behalf Of Mike Pietruk Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2023 9:28 AM To: main@jfw.groups.io Subject: Re: How can I tell if I am on my 2G or 5G WiFi band? Richard Thanks for explaining the difference between the 2 bands. So, if speed is a concern, one would try using the higher speed initially and only switch to the lower band if there were signal disruptions indicating that one's wifi card couldn't reliably hang onto the signal. Would local congestion ppotentially play a part in the choice of band? |
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K0LNY
Video is probably the only thing that might be affected by 2.4 verses 5 ghz.
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Your receiving computer may not be able to write a large download any faster than the 2.4 ghz can send it. So I think gamers and HD video watchers are the only folk who really benefit from a 5 ghz connection. And then are other bottlenecks along the way too, when it comes to file downloads which can render a 5 ghz connection superfluous. Glenn ----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard B. McDonald" <richardbmcdonald@...> To: <main@jfw.groups.io> Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2023 8:05 AM Subject: Re: How can I tell if I am on my 2G or 5G WiFi band? Hi Mike, Your understanding is essentially correct. Supposedly, a modern WiFi adapter (the "card" in your computer that receives/transmits on the WiFi network) will choose whichever band (2.4G or 5G) has the fastest and most stable signal. Supposedly, also, the WiFi router (the thing that transmits/receives over the WiFi network the Internet connection brought to your place via cable/fiber/satellite broadcasts in both 2.4G and 5G. It is true that the 5G band is a weaker signal, but it is faster than the 2.4G band. That means that to get a decent signal (like "4 bars") you need line of sight to the router and not much farther than about 40 feet away, typically. The 2.4G band has a much farther range and is better at transmitting/receiving through things like walls. But, that 2.4G band is about 1/2 the speed of the 5G band. As far as "local congestion" slowing things down, if by that you mean multiple devices (phones, PCs, laptops, TVs, Alexas, etc.) on the WiFi network, yes the more of them that there are the slower everyone's speed will be. Now, on a very technical level, I am not really sure if these bands operate like separate lanes on a freeway. For example, suppose a bunch of devices are all on the 2.4G band, and no one is on the 5.g band. Everything else being equal, I am not sure if switching to the 5G band would make things faster for you. It might be the case that instead of operating like two separate lanes on a freeway all the traffic theoretically flows in the same one lane. Supposedly, a modern router has two transmit/receive antennas: one for 2.4G and one for 5G. That would seem to indicate the two separate lanes analogy. But, I suppose that all the traffic - once past whichever antenna it is coming/going through and once inside the router - all ends-up in the same pathway; sort of like the two separate lanes merging. This is a fascinating question. I would love to know the answer! I bet some one on this list knows the answer! HTH, Richard -----Original Message----- From: main@jfw.groups.io <main@jfw.groups.io> On Behalf Of Mike Pietruk Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2023 9:28 AM To: main@jfw.groups.io Subject: Re: How can I tell if I am on my 2G or 5G WiFi band? Richard Thanks for explaining the difference between the 2 bands. So, if speed is a concern, one would try using the higher speed initially and only switch to the lower band if there were signal disruptions indicating that one's wifi card couldn't reliably hang onto the signal. Would local congestion ppotentially play a part in the choice of band? |
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On Thu, Feb 23, 2023 at 12:19 PM, K0LNY wrote:
So I think gamers and HD video watchers are the only folk who really benefit from a 5 ghz connection.- Either of those frequencies, functioning at peak speed (or even less than peak speed but still in the "good" range), should be more than fast enough for HD video. -- Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13) It’s not lack of contact with the world off campus that leads to the liberal views common in academia — it’s being trained to think critically and practicing this craft daily as we look at the world around us that makes us the libs conservatives so dislike. ~ Eliot A. Brenowitz, Seattle; New York Times, Letters, Tales of Town and Gown: Is the Campus Isolated?, August 20, 2022 |
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Chris Hill
2.4 ghz is longer range with more interference from neighboring Wi-Fi it also shares the same band as Bluetooth, which can cause additional problems.
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On Feb 24, 2023, at 12:36, Brian Vogel <britechguy@...> wrote:
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On Fri, Feb 24, 2023 at 01:45 PM, Chris Hill wrote:
2.4 ghz is longer range- Which is very often the key thing. That being said, if 5 GHz works just fine in a given setting then there's no reason not to use it. If it doesn't, then going with 2.4 GHz will probably solve the issue. Everything has its plusses and minuses. Tool to task, as I always say. -- Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13) It’s not lack of contact with the world off campus that leads to the liberal views common in academia — it’s being trained to think critically and practicing this craft daily as we look at the world around us that makes us the libs conservatives so dislike. ~ Eliot A. Brenowitz, Seattle; New York Times, Letters, Tales of Town and Gown: Is the Campus Isolated?, August 20, 2022 |
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