Difference Between 2.4 Ghz Vs 5 Ghz
What is the difference between 2.4ghz vs 5ghz
These two numbers 2.4 and 5, allude to two different “bands” that Wi-Fi service uses for its signal. The main difference between these two is speed. Under ideal conditions, 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi supports speed up to 400 Mbps or 600 Mbps, depending upon the class of the router. On the other side, 5 GHz Wi-Fi will support up to 1300 Mbps speed. 2.4 GHz band has a frequency range between 2.4 GHz and 2.4835 GHz. This band is used by 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n and it is divided into 14 fixed frequency channels which are 20 MHz wide. In North America, channels number 12 and 13 are illegal.
Channel 14 is beyond 2.4 GHz band so it is not used in other countries, unlike Japan. The gap between adjacent channels is 5 MHz wide. Only three channels can be active at a time. 2.4 GHz band is considered as a crowded band because it is widely used in cell phones, microwave ovens, Bluetooth, etc. It is very efficient to the interference. Whereas 5 GHz band is used by 802.11a, 802.11n, 702.11ac standards and divided into UNII-1, UNII-2, UNII-2 extended, UNII-3 & ISM. The full form of UNII is Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure and ISM stands for Industrial, Scientific & Medical. These are the labels, specifications, and regulations for the different parts of this 5 GHz band. As an example, we can say that UNII-1 is specifically designed for indoor Wi-Fi networks.
The 5 GHz band has consisted of 24 unlicensed bands, each of the bands is 20 MHz wide. We can see no overlapping amongst the 24 bands so 5 GHz band is less congested than the 2.4 GHz band. Users can get a more stable connection in the case of a 5 GHz band than the 2.4 GHz band. The rate of data transfer is also higher in the case of 5 GHz band. 2 GHz band possesses a slightly lower data transferring rate.
We will get a Wi-Fi connection from 5 GHz band, which can support a data transferring speed up to 1 GB/second or even more than that. To increase the bandwidth, starting from 802.11a, the channel bonding process can be adopted. In this process, two adjacent channels are combined into one wider channel. Like two 20 MHz channels can be combined into one wider 40 MHz channel. In the case of 802.11ac standard, two 40 MHz channels can be combined into one 80 MHz channel. Apart from these, two 80 MHz channels can be combined into one 160 MHz channel.
We can say that the 5 GHz band provides a faster rate always and the latest Wi-Fi standards are using the 5GHz band for this reason. But using the 2.4 GHz band user will get lower attenuation, which results in lower frequencies that can travel a longer distance than the frequencies created from the 5 MHz band. Based on the user requirements, 2.4 GHz or GHz band is chosen but in today’s scenario, 5 GHz is an automatic choice in most of the cases.