Linksys EA6900 manual How to get the most out of your dual- band router

Linksys EA-Series

How to get the most out of your dual- band router

I bought a dual band router, but I’m not sure that I’m getting the most out of it. What should I check? Of the many reasons for owning a dual-band router, the most common is to ensure available bandwidth for streaming high- definition video. At the same time, owners want to make sure that their video streams won’t be interrupted by other wireless network traffic. To get the most out of your dual-band router, you can:

•• Upgrade your wireless clients

•• Split your traffic

Upgrade your wireless clients

If you have network adapters that support only legacy wireless network standards such as 802.11b, you should consider upgrading them with Wireless-N (802.11n) network adapters. Wireless-B (802.11b) devices can slow your entire wireless network. For the best performance, all of your wireless devices should support Wireless-N. You can then select Wireless-N Only as your Network Mode below.

NOTE

If you select Wireless-N Only, you may need to temporarily change your network settings to Mixed to provide access to guests without Wireless-N networking.

Split your traffic

The best way to improve your multimedia wireless performance is to split your wireless traffic between your router’s two bands (ranges of radio frequencies). Your router supports the 2.4 GHz band and the 5 GHz band, and handles the two bands as two separate wireless networks to help manage the traffic.

The most common way to split wireless traffic is to use the 2.4 GHz band for basic Internet tasks such as web browsing, email, and downloads, and use the 5.0 GHz band for streaming multimedia. There are several reasons for this approach:

•• Although the 2.4 GHz band may be more crowded with wireless traffic from your neighbors, it’s fine for basic Internet traffic that is not time- sensitive (such as e-mail).

Setting Up: Advanced

•• Even though you are connected to your own wireless network, you are still sharing “air time” with nearby networks.

•• The 5 GHz band is much less crowded than the 2.4 GHz band, so it’s ideal for streaming multimedia.

•• The 5 GHz band has more available channels, so it is more likely that you will have your own, interference-free channel for your wireless network.

By default, your dual-band router uses the same network name on both the

2.4GHz band and the 5 GHz band. The easiest way to segment your traffic is to rename one of your wireless networks. With a separate, descriptive name, it will be easy to connect to the right network.

To reconfigure your wireless network:

1.Log into Linksys Smart Wi-Fi. (See “How to connect to Linksys Smart Wi- Fi” on page 7.

2.Under Router Settings, click Wireless. The Wireless page opens to the Wireless tab.

3.Click Edit next to the network band you want to modify. Change any of the settings below:

a.Enabled—Deselect this checkbox to disable the network band.

b.Network name (SSID)—You can provide a unique SSID for each band of your wireless network. The name must not exceed 32 characters.

c.Password—You can provide a unique password for each band of your wireless network.

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