Since 802.11 WLANs use a shared-access medium, channel utilization is always a concern. As channels become more heavily saturated, application performance suffers. This is especially true in the 2.4-GHz band, where only three truly usable channels exist and contention from legacy and non-802.11 sources can be fierce. What’s really needed is a means for moving clients away from congestion.
The band steering feature in ARM provides just such a means. Band steering continually monitors channel utilization and directs dual-band clients toward the less congested 5-GHz band. As a result, these high-speed clients won’t have to contend for bandwidth with legacy clients that use more time slots in the 2.4-GHz band. For all clients, the result is less interference and more available channels.
Band steering has multiple configuration modes. In preferred mode, band steering encourages dual-band clients to use the less congested 5-GHz band if available. In band balancing mode, system allocates clients across the 2.4- and 5-GHz radios on the same access point according to a preconfigured ratio. In force mode, band steering always assigns dual-band clients onto 5-GHz channels.
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