New EE router too new for customer's laptop

mikewill34 · 14 February at 4:51PM

Just a quick note about how I "fixed" the router.

My customer has just changed from a BT Broadband to EE Broadband contract.

EE engineer came out to install the new router and could not get her Windows 10 Lenovo laptop to "see" the WiFi SSID being broadcast by the router. Left her laptop connected to the router via ethernet cable, which was too short to be realistically useable.

Same engineer came back two days later and was still unable to sort this out.

I was able to sort this out in a few minutes by downgrading the WiFi from WiFi 6 to WiFi 5.
I did this because her laptop is a few years old and will not have a WiFi 6 adapter in it.
This does not in any way comprimise her security.

Why the heck are the engineers trained on how to sort out such simple matters as this !

Especially as most customers (I would guess 95%) will NOT have WiFi 6 equipped laptop.

/Mike Williams

oldernonethewiser · 14 February at 5:00PM

Possibly because the engineer is there to install the router and make sure it works?

Not their job to ensure that the household has equipment compatible with the router.

That might be the reason

tghe-retford · 14 February at 6:45PM

I've never known a router which only works via Wi-Fi 6 and requires manual intervention to work with Wi-Fi 5 devices. Normally I've used devices that work with Wi-Fi 5 and 6 on the same Wi-Fi 6 router without any issues. This seems an odd issue.

Saying that, I use Ethernet where possible and practical.

forgotmyname · 14 February at 7:04PM

Not a case of a 2.4Ghz laptop and they only enabled 5Ghz on the router?

Neil_Jones · 14 February at 9:23PM

Wifi6 was ratified in 2019...

Wifi5 is a 5Ghz only standard there is no support for 2.4Ghz in that standard.

There is in Wifi6, but Wifi6 is a mandatory requirement for WPA3 encryption, which I suspect is the sticking point more than anything else.

But regardless, yes not the engineer's responsibility to set the laptop up or that the customer that can use it; they're just setting the internet up.

maya85 · 15 February at 11:12AM

Only about 1 in 5 of my social circle has wifi 6 and I am in the tech industry. We are years away from wifi 6. The engineer should have known better.

Neil_Jones · 15 February at 11:34AM

maya85 said:

Only about 1 in 5 of my social circle has wifi 6 and I am in the tech industry. We are years away from wifi 6. The engineer should have known better.

Why would the engineer have any inkling of what the customer is using to get online with? The customer could be using a potato to get online for all the engineer knows...

The OP mentions Windows 10, that has had Wifi6 capability since the 2004 update, but that doesn't necessarily mean the hardware inside the machine is capable of it. For all we know it could be an upgraded machine that came with Windows 7 that saw a free upgrade to 10, which doesn't magically give the hardware new capabilities.

DullGreyGuy · 15 February at 11:44AM

maya85 said:

Only about 1 in 5 of my social circle has wifi 6 and I am in the tech industry. We are years away from wifi 6. The engineer should have known better.

That may say a lot more about your social circle and what you guys talk about more than anything else.

I could probably take a stab at social networks' mobiles given most have iPhones and AX support came with the 11 so anyone with an obviously older model would be a no but would have no idea about people's laptops other than one or two who may have mentioned having bought a new computer recently but then it'd still be a guess unless we explicitly talked about it being a M series Mac or such.

It's not for the "engineer" to know better. Their job is just to setup the router and check its working. It's up to the customer to deal with any connections after that. A rather unusual friend runs a 802.5 token ring at home for reasons I've always zoned out when he's explained why he uses a dead standard... can't expect a guy who just plugs in routers to understand how to get it to work with a router using the now ubiquitous 802.3 ethernet standard.

tghe-retford · 15 February at 7:20PM

Neil_Jones said:

Wifi6 was ratified in 2019...
Wifi5 is a 5Ghz only standard there is no support for 2.4Ghz in that standard.

There is in Wifi6, but Wifi6 is a mandatory requirement for WPA3 encryption, which I suspect is the sticking point more than anything else.

But regardless, yes not the engineer's responsibility to set the laptop up or that the customer that can use it; they're just setting the internet up.

WPA3 encryption is a good point. But again, on every router that I have seen that uses it, it defaults to WPA2/WPA3 encryption. WPA2 has been mandatory for Wi-Fi certification since 2006 so the laptop should easily support WPA2.

The router that I bought this year supports the Wi-Fi 1 specification that was adopted since 1999.

Grumpy_chap · 15 February at 8:23PM

Neil_Jones said:

The customer could be using a potato to get online for all the engineer knows...

Is that the latest, all singing, all dancing gadget to have?
I know a lot of people who use an Apple to get online.
Many years ago I had an Acorn computer.
Some of my friends had an Apricot computer.
My brother used to have a Blackberry.
Many children seem to use a Raspberry Pi.