Forcing wireless to connect on 802.11a

On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 4:46 AM, bogen2 <bogentuyahoo.com> wrote:
> I have been searching for a way to force a Mac to connect to a wireless access point on 802.11a. If the AP supports the a, b and g ( and n ) protocols it appears that the mac will always connect on b or g. The only way I've found to ensure that 'a' is chosen is to disable the b/g radio in the AP. What is the use of supporting 'a' if there is no way to connect to it without shutting down the b/g radio?
>
> Does anyone know of a way to establish a connection using the 'a' protocol? As the radio spectrum on 2.4ghz gets busier I am hopeful that using the 802.11a will resolve many of my interference issues.

I don't think it's possible to use 802.11a and 802.11b/g at the same
time. So what you did by turning off the b/g option is what you need
to do. The basic reason for this is the same reason that you want to
get out of the 2.4GHz band. 802.11a operates in the 5Ghz band,
802.11b/g operates in the 2.4GHz band and 802.11n can use either. The
Airport can only use one band at a time (unless something has changed
that I'm not aware of.) If you don't like turning off the b/g option
look for a setting that will allow you to select the band you wish to
use, although basically this is turning off the b/g option in effect.
I'm fairly certain that the Airport and Macs preference for b/g is
entirely due to the g part, it handles radio reflections a bit better
than 802.11a and can have a higher throughput. Another option is to
leave b/g on and play around with the channels to see if that
decreases your interference.

On a final note, make sure the issues you are having are actually due
to interference. I live in complex that has on average 20 wireless
access points running at the same time with out an issue (sadly most
are unsecured.) While at work we had to add two additional access
points to our original one due to structural elements in the walls (oh
and an elevator shaft) that was degrading the wireless signal.

--
Michael