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Comment by ddalex | Hacker News Reader

that's why I'm running only 2.4Ghz APs, enough bandwidth for mobile common uses, all static hardware has wires to them. Far better then 5GHz band

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Same, if a wireless device needs more than 54Mbps (802.11g, what the ancient Linksys WRT54G already offered) then I feel I'm doing something wrong and I'd better off just plugging it to my USB-C dock to get ethernet and power.

It's enough to stream 4k video (though barely, and I'd be better off moving to a TV), has better wall penetration and is fast enough for browsing and updating software.

I don't have to deal with congestion though. I think I've only seen a neighbour's AP once and I doubt they started hiding their SSID. My guess is that congestion is an issue because transmission power isn't low enough and there's little you can do to fix someone else's AP other than be increasingly louder than them.

Isn't 2.4GHz too congested already, esp considering a lot of wifi-connected devices still work at that range? I typically go the other way around to avoid congestion.

I recall being surprised that 2.4 GHz was completely unusable in an upper west side apartment. <56k throughput and >1000 ms latency.

This is Europe where we have concrete or masonry walls and good insulation, I see maybe 2 other APs in the worst days in the apartment. On the good days I have no other APs.

I saw about 50 in maybe 10 years old apartment building, once the new ISP in the block started giving people routers with wifi enabled by default

I don't know about other areas but any apartment buildings post like 1990s are just absolute junk when it comes to separation. Before then it was just concrete or structural brick and now somehow it's often 'fireproof magicboard'.

Hahaha.

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