GT-BE98 Pro Wifi 7 issues - iPhone 16 Pro

[djviko]

Hi all,

I recently purchased and setup an #GT-BE98_Pro as main router. (also have an RT-AX92U as wired AiMesh for extending my netwo

My setup consists of a main network (with SmartConnect -all bands-, MLO enabled) and an IoT network as well. Both share the same password.

When I setup my new iPhone 16 Pro -which supports WiFi 7- to my main network SSID, it automatically asked if I also wanted to connect to the IoT network for better compatibility (and I said yes)

The issue when testing is that I do get somehow good intranet speeds (I've seen up to 1,935Mbps dl speeds) -I check via OpenSpeedTest docker on my NAS- as well as internet speeds... but after a few hours, ONLY my iPhone download speed is reduced to around 20Mbps.

When I check my devices, my router says that my iphone is connected via MLO (during the good speed tests but also when the bandwidth seems to be maxed at around 20Mbps) and the only way to go out of that limit is to either reboot my router or disconnect my iphone and connect it again... and boom, speeds back to normal...

What are your thoughts? I have not played a lot with Professional settings on my router since I am not exactly sure what each and every configuration does so I almost leave everything as default...

Thanks!!

[jzchen]

Default settings tend to work best, so you are wise to not change anything unless you are sure to.  While I tried to convince my son to upgrade from his 13 Pro Max he prefers to wait for the 17.

That said I've just gone through two Apple pages with WiFi information:

Wi-Fi specifications for Apple devices - Apple Support

Recommended settings for Wi-Fi routers and access points - Apple Support

Turns out they (still) recommend enabling Preferred Scanning Channels (PSC checkbox) on the 6 GHz bands.  From the 2nd article I gleamed to enable WMM, which stands for WiFi Multimedia.  I went to check my BQ16 Pro settings pages and a WMM setting is already enabled, so I'd assume it would also be so on your BE98 Pro.

I remember when my son received his 6E MacBook Pro.  (I had to figure that out eventually, on my own).  I ended up purchasing a TP-Link (RE815XE) 6E range extender, knowing that if I could get the much less settings on that to work I would just copy them over to my GT-AXE16000.  Interestingly it worked either out of the box and/or after a firmware update, so I didn't need to play around and just copied over the 2 different settings, one of which was enabling PSC.  Hopefully you don't have to "throw money at it" to figure it out like I did...

[djviko]

Thanks a lot for your reply jzchen!

I had already found the 2nd link you posted but the 1st one is enlightening, thanks a lot for that. So it turns out iPhone 16 Pro WiFi -even WiFi 7 is supported- we do not get any advantage vs iPhone 15 Pro since the Maximum PHY data rate is 2400Mbps for both... and only works with 6Ghz with 160MHz channel bandwidth...

I read somewhere about the "WiFi Agile Multiband" that was supposed to be good to enable such setting -so I did- only difference now is that I am not seeing legacy devices connect to the IoT SSID but to the main SSID... and also, it says that my iPhone 16 Pro is now connected to the 6GHz-1 band instead of saying "MLO" but so far my speed tests have been really good (between 1200 - 1500Mbps download) which I am comfortable with...

My internet connection is only 750Mbps DL and 350Mbps UL but that is not my concern... my speed concern is more on the LAN since I am trying to create a backup of my iPhone to my iMac via WiFi since my iMac is old and only have USB 2.0 cable which is terribly slow...

Thanks for the tips... any comments on the "WiFi Agile Multiband" option I enabled on all of the radios? (2.4, 5, 6-1, 6-2) thanks!

[jzchen]

WiFi Agile MultiBand is a WiFi Alliance development.  I did not see you have other manufacturer routers/access points running?  I have it turned on for that reason as I've had my BE98 Pro since 11/30 of last year, and had so much challenges that I added an ACER router and a TP-Link DECO router, more explanation of the feature is here:

https://www.wi-fi.org/discover-wi-fi/wi-fi-agile-multiband

Within my ASUS network I've also seen what I believe is an effect of turning WAM on.  It will tend to distribute clients to my nodes evenly.  I currently have 5 ASUS nodes to the new to me BQ16 Pro, which includes a BE98 Pro (Ver 1.0 if that matters).

[jzchen]

As for my opinion on whether you should turn WAM on, I'd say don't unless you do add other manufacturer WiFi routers/access points.  Similar to what you seem to notice is that it may move a high throughput client to 2.4 GHz when it should be better off on 5 or 6 GHz.  But if you notice improvement (that's what my interpretation of what it does means, which could definitely be wrong), keep it.

The other setting I had to change for 6E I did not mention, because I noticed my son's 6E MacBook connect to the BE98 Pro without trouble with the setting enabled.  (It is by default enabled on ASUS routers, but just in case I'll mention it:

OFDMA/802.11ax MU-MIMO (for some reason 6E MacBook Pro did not function on 6 GHz with ASUS 6E routers without this setting disabled).

[Saltgrass]

As far as I know, the IoT network is not MLO capable.  If you go to the MLO tab on your router, do you show your main MLO network listed?

My current iPhone normally runs at 1.2 Gbps.  I may have more info regarding your exact configuration in early October.

Do you live in an area where you get 5G cellular?

[djviko]

Hi @Saltgrass thanks a lot for your reply, No, I just have MLO applied on my main network but it is not listed inside MLO tab... do I require to add an specific SSID for it to work properly?

When I had "WiFi Agile Multiband" disabled on all bands, my router would display my iPhone being connected as MLO... now after I enabled WAM, it is displayed as connected to 6G-1 band...

All my speed tests on the iPhone 16 Pro have been consistently throwing good DL speed of about 1.2Gbps as well... what I wonder is to why something is making my iPhone go down to 20Mbps after a few hours when on MLO...

[Saltgrass]

As far as your phone, you might try keeping track when the changes occur and see if you can find anything in the logs.

If you noticed, you WiFi SSID is a VLAN version, so I do believe you need it in the MLO tab, as per the attachment.

Since you probably do not yet have Windows 24H2, the phone is the only device that will show you the MLO option.  We have been working and trying to get this process sorted for how to get it working correctly.  

@jzchen Thanks

[jzchen]

You might want to wipe the SSID in the upper right...

[djviko]

Thanks @Saltgrass I will definitely try to notice when the change to 20Mbps occurs and try to see if I can find something in the log (Ill search for that as well to see where I can view it but must be somewhere on my router admin page)

Correct, I do NOT have any other WiFi 7 devices so one of my laptops with WiFi6E connects perfectly but only one channel with 2402/2402 Mbps speeds -which is good- but I cannot test anything else...

I dont think there is a way to view such details on an iPhone, is there?

And how would I know if my network is working as an VLAN version? I will create a separate MLO SSID then to see what happens 🙂 but this will have to wait until tomorrow (my iPhone's backup is near halfway now so...)

thanks again!!