You just ordered your new Aruba 600 or 700 series APs and are ready to rock and roll with 6 GHz.
Can you just turn it on and let it go? Maybe!
In this article we will explain the benefits of 6 GHz, potential gotcha’s, and how to properly enable it in your environment
Benefits of 6 GHz. Among many, there are two main reasons.
More Bandwidth
Every AP requires the use of 1 or more channels to service the WiFi clients. Before 6 GHz you were operating on 2.4 and 5 GHz frequency and the specific channels. These two frequency bands have limited space to combine channels together to give faster throughput/bandwidth. 6 GHz gives us the ability to combine more channels together (80 Mhz / 160 MHz) providing double or quadruple the bandwidth you would get with 2.4 or 5 GHz. – This can get much more technical of course. Google ‘Wifi Channel Re-Use’ if you are interested in learning more.
More Secure
6 Ghz requires the use of a security Protocol called WPA3. The major benefit enhances your network security to prevent a hacker from listening to the ‘air’ and grabbing data to analyze (This is called an offline attack). This is easily achieved with the previous security protocols WPA and WPA2.
You said Gotcha’s? Yes.
Not all devices support WPA3. Many legacy devices can’t understand an SSID using it and therefore cannot connect. There is a feature called Transition Mode which allows legacy clients to use WPA2 instead of WPA3. That’s great but unfortunately does not work for many older clients.
Many organizations want to keep the same SSID name enabled on all the wireless radios. 2.4, 5 and 6 GHz. This allows non-6 GHz clients as well as 6 GHz capable clients to connect to any of the radios. To support this, the SSID MUST be enabled for WPA3 across all three bands. Please refer to the previous bullet as to why this is an issue.
You could create a new SSID that includes 6 GHz for capable clients to use. This, however, is difficult if you are using an MDM server to manage your clients. You would need to identify non-6 GHz clients and deploy the ‘older’ SSID. Then identify the 6 GHz clients and deploy the 6 GHz enabled SSID…. And then manage this moving forward as you replace or upgrade devices. Not desirable.
Create a TEST SSID
Make sure it is enabled for WPA3 and adjust the 6 GHz band to 80 or 160 MHz wide channels (you want that speed!). Since it is enabled for WPA3, the 6 GHz radio will be able to use it. – Please consult with Laketec before considering 320 MHz wide channels.
Test every model of production client to ensure it can successfully connect to the SSID. Especially the legacy clients. If they connect, great! You can enable WPA3 on your production SSID. You now have a single SSID that can be used across all three frequency bands. Don’t forget to adjust the 6 GHz channels to allow for 80 or 160 MHz wide channels.
What if my device doesn’t work with WPA3
Unfortunately, there are only a few choices. First, try upgrading the OS or Wireless Driver. If this does not work, you either need to replace the device (or wireless card if that is an option) or create a new SSID that has WPA3 enabled for the devices that can support it. This obviously means reconfiguring those devices for the new SSID. This leads back to the Gotchas.
Laketec can help set up your test SSID as well as your production SSID when you are ready. As always, please feel free to reach out with any questions!