I'm the solo IT support person for an SMB operating out of a converted two-story house. We have roughly 70–80 employees and around 90–100 wireless devices during peak hours, including laptops, phones, printers, and other equipment.
The current setup uses a Huawei fiber modem in DMZ mode, a MikroTik RB450Gx4 handling routing, DHCP, firewalling, and bandwidth queues, plus a 24-port unmanaged gigabit switch. Seven TP-Link Deco BE25/X50 units are configured in access-point mode with wired Ethernet backhaul; six are active. Four active APs are on the first floor and two are on the second floor. Two livestreaming PCs are wired into a Deco node and remain stable.
The problems are concentrated on the first floor and almost entirely affect 2.4 GHz clients. Devices on 2.4 GHz randomly disconnect, fail to authenticate, or experience ping spikes above 2,000 ms. Clients that connect to 5 GHz are stable, but many capable devices stubbornly remain on 2.4 GHz when both bands share an SSID. The second floor, with fewer APs, is much more reliable.
Wired clients are fine, and the wireless network works normally when the office is mostly empty. I have already tried separating the SSIDs and disabling 2.4 GHz, but some devices still had trouble connecting. All APs use wired backhaul, and the Decos do not provide much control over per-node channel assignments, so several APs may be competing on the same channel.
Is there any practical configuration change that could keep this consumer equipment usable, such as disabling 2.4 GHz, separating SSIDs, reducing AP density, or changing channels? Or has the setup reached a point where airtime contention and limited controller features make replacement unavoidable? I'd also appreciate advice on explaining the difference between a bandwidth limit and a Wi-Fi capacity problem to management, along with recommendations for business-grade APs such as Omada or UniFi for this type of building.
5 Answers
The first thing I’d test is turning off 2.4 GHz for the main office SSID, or putting it on a separate SSID with a different password. If the laptops and phones all support 5 GHz, this should remove a lot of slow-client airtime usage and stop people from accidentally joining the congested band. Keep 2.4 GHz only for equipment that genuinely requires it, such as older printers or IoT devices.
Also run a channel-utilization survey during the busiest period. Seven APs in a relatively small house can be worse than fewer, better-placed APs, especially if the system forces multiple radios onto the same channel. Lowering transmit power and removing unnecessary APs may help, but the lack of per-AP radio control is a serious limitation here.
I would also remove private phones, guest devices, and other non-business equipment from the primary company network where possible. Put them on a guest or separate VLAN with appropriate limits, and make sure large updates, streaming, and backups cannot consume all available airtime or bandwidth.
That said, QoS on the router will not fix a radio that is overloaded. A 500 Mbps internet connection can be perfectly healthy while the wireless network is unusable because clients are competing for airtime. Management should be shown busy-hour measurements: client counts, channel utilization, retransmissions, latency, and the difference between wired, 5 GHz, and 2.4 GHz results.
This sounds like a network that grew incrementally rather than one designed for the current client density. I would stop treating the Decos as an enterprise platform and plan a replacement. Omada EAP or UniFi APs can both work, provided you select models and placement based on a floor plan and survey rather than simply installing more units.
Start with fewer APs at sensible locations, use wired uplinks, separate corporate and guest traffic, and configure the radios individually. A U6-Pro-class AP or comparable Omada model may be appropriate, but the exact count depends on walls, floor area, and expected client distribution. A controller and proper monitoring will be more valuable than buying a large number of consumer nodes.
I would avoid buying a gateway appliance just because it is bundled with the AP brand. Keep the MikroTik if it is meeting routing and firewall requirements, and replace the wireless layer first unless there is a separate reason to redesign the edge.
Your testing already points away from the ISP, router, and switching. The fact that wired systems and 5 GHz clients remain stable while 2.4 GHz collapses under load is much more consistent with RF airtime contention, co-channel interference, or poor client steering than with an internet-speed problem.
A heat map and busy-hour spectrum survey would be worthwhile before buying anything. Check neighboring networks, channel utilization, noise, retransmissions, and client counts by AP. Avoid running every nearby AP on the same channel, use sensible channel widths, and reduce transmit power so clients do not cling to a distant AP. Consumer mesh products generally hide too many of these controls for a dense office deployment.
For an immediate stopgap, publish the 5 GHz SSID as the normal office network and move 2.4 GHz to a clearly labeled compatibility network. Tell users that the compatibility network is for devices that cannot use 5 GHz. If disabling 2.4 GHz causes some clients to fail even on the 5 GHz-only SSID, check client drivers, WPA settings, channel compatibility, and whether those devices support the selected channels; that behavior is not necessarily proof that the internet connection is failing.
Do not expect band steering to rescue a heavily congested design. Steering is ultimately advisory because the client often decides which band and AP to use.
All of the APs are hardwired, so there is no wireless mesh backhaul. I did try separate SSIDs and a channel scan, but the Decos provide very little control over channel assignments per node. That same-channel behavior is one of the main reasons I’m considering replacing them.