Nokia FastMile 5G Gateway 3.2 WiFi issues

[wirelessly99]

Hi

Very happy with the cellular performance of the FastMile 5G Gateway 3.2, but the Wi-Fi has quite a few issues. I noticed that all my devices connect to 2.4GHz, despite many of these very new devices supporting 802.11ax etc.I got a Wi-Fi analyser and spent a lot of time tinkering with the Nokia and measuring the

results. No wonder my devices are always connecting to 2.4, because the 5GHz power levels fluctuate like mad, and are very low. I set the 2.4GHz to the lowest possible level to tempt the devices to use 5GHz. But since the 5GHz radios are stubborn and don't react to user power tx settings, it's hopeless.   

Enabled 2.4 and 5GHz using same SSID on WPA2 Personal

Anyone else notice this?

• Does not react when setting the Transmit Power levels (12% or 100% has same effect)
• The Tx power constantly fluctuating (up to 10dB)
• The wifi stats show the Tx power in very high numbers - don't see correct 338.16mW (2.4) and 2547mW for 5GHz - And bears no relation to measured values
• When I set the channel width to 20 MHz it uses 40 MHz
• There is a hidden SSID that I cannot disable (I have disabled all the other SSIDs in the GUI)
• How to delete SSIDs that are not required and disabled (no delete option)

I am on the latest firmware available - not sure how to raise these issues with Nokia.

Software version 1.2304.00.0445

[adib_rahmang]

Hey @wirelessly99,

Why don't you disable band steering? That way, you'll have a separate 5GHz network.

[wirelessly99]

Hi 

The FastMile 3.2 doesn't seem to have an option to disable Band Steering. Its wifi configurations are very limited.  Regardless though, why would disabling band steering improve the situation?  I want devices to end up on the 5GHz radio - and band steering is designed to help with that. Ultimately, WiFi is designed such that, the clients decide which radio they associate with, and not the AP. All I can do is to make one radio look more appealing than the other - and I tried turning down the 2.4GHz Tx power to the minimum, and the 5GHz radio to the max - in my office location the 5GHz radio RSSI is still lower than 2.4GHz radio, and the clients tend to prefer that.  I didn't have that issue with my previous NBN router.  I can't seem to turn the 2.4GHz radio down enough.  I can't turn it off entirely either, because I have dumb client devices that only have a 2.4GHz radio.

I'm also unable to get rid of my previous SSIDs I created as a test, but that I disabled. The FastMile seems to collect them like garbage - you can't delete them. Neither in the web UI or in the iPhone app.  I won't feel like factory resetting this modem. Nokia should fix their product instead, or tell me where I am going wrong. How hard can it be to provide an option to delete an SSID profile?

[david64]

Hi @wirelessly99 . This might help with band steering.

From Nokia manual:

Supports WebUI configuration to enable or disable single SSID: if enabled the CPE will merge 2.4 GHz band SSID and 5 GHz band SSID, and automatically select the frequency band that provides a faster speed.