My Net N900 - How to achieve the 450 + 450 speeds

WD Legacy Products My Net Networking Devices
1

Just picked this router up today and it is very fast so far. I also bought a Netgear N900 model WNDS4100 dual band usb adapter that is also supposed to support the 450 + 450…

Problem is, I can only connect to either the 2.4 OR the 5 ghz band, but not both. So How do you actually connect to BOTH bands at the same time to get the 450 + 450 speeds? thanks!

2

You dont, only one band at the time.

3

I never knew that was an issue.  If you have various people in a household with various devices that may not all be 2.4 GHz, then how is the router supposed to stop one traffic to allow for another. I was under the assumption that regardless of the band, the router just handled both frequencies as needed. I haven’t seen any issues.  What symptoms should a person be looking for?

4

" If you have various people in a household with various devices that may not all be 2.4 GHz, then how is the router supposed to stop one traffic to allow for another. I was under the assumption that regardless of the band, the router just handled both frequencies as needed."

The router puts out two different network connections- one for each bandwidth. If you have a device which supports both 2.4GHz and 5 GHz bandwidth, you’ll be able to see both connections as different wifi networks and choose which one to connect to. Since performance suffers if you try to have older b/g devices on the same bandwidth as wifi-n devices, it’s probably best to point your older devices to the 2.4GHz network and new wifi-N devices to the 5GHz. Older devices without 5GHz support won’t even be able to see the second network. Devices on different bandwiths can still see one another. Maximum theoretical bandwidth from one device to the router is 450 Mbps. Total theoretical bandwidth on the network is 900 Mbps (one device on 2.4Ghz at 450 Mbps and another device on 5GHz at 450 Mbps)

5

Correct.  There is one other option that was left out though.  If you have a server version of windows or any flavor of Linux, you can team the different bands together to increase max transfer rates over wifi to wired devices at up to the theoretical 900mbps since the LAN is 1gbps.  Due note that trying to do teamed wifi to another teamed wifi device is fairly useless at increasing speed over simply using A for one card and BGN for the other since they would be competing for the same bandwidth.