Band Steering and Ignite WIFI Pods

[Benj416]

Ok so bandsteering is wreaking havoc with one of my printers. The printer is HP Officejet 6500aplus series and only operates on 2.4ghz. It worked great on Rogers old modem with my own router. Since upgrading to Ignite WITH PODS, it errors out daily. Full display flashing and message saying printer error and to turn printer off and then back on. Next day (or even same day) same thing happens. I thought it was a printer hardware problem so i disconnected the printer from the network and left it on in standby mode to see if it really was a hardware problem. The printer did not "error out". When i connected it to the network again, it errored out again. So i know the problem is with the new bandsteering modem. I also know i cant turn off bandsteering while using the pods.which i need on the ignite wifi modem to get the coverage i was able to get on my old router.
I've seen many posts about bandsteering confusing older printers. So as it stands now, i'm basically screwed.
My question is can the pods be accessed directly and set to only connect to the 2.4ghz network? If i disconnect the pods, i can set separate ssid's to each network and manually set appropriate devices to the appropriate network. But i need the pods to extend my network throughout my home. Only the computers and tv ignite boxes need to be on 5ghz and all are well within range. Everything else (cell phones, printers) work great on 2.4. But the new Ignite wifi modem has limited range compared to my old router. So i need the pods. Which need bandsteering. Which screw up my printer. And yes the the ignite wifi router is centrally located. It gives the best possible signal throughout the house where its at. Believe me i've moved it around a dozen times. Where its at is optimal but it simply does not have the range my old router did. So i need the pods. If i split the networks, is there a way of manually configuring the pods to connect ONLY to the 2.4ghz network?

***Edited Labels***

[RogersCorey]

Greetings @Benj416!

As far as I am aware, there is no officially supported way to manually configure the pods to use a 2.4ghz connection only.

Your alternative in this case are to try bridging your own router to the modem but that is also not an officially supported setup. If your previous router met your needs, then this is an angle worth exploring if you're comfortable with having an unsupported setup.

Take a look at this post by our illustrious Resident Expert @-G- for more details on bridging: Using the Ignite TV Modem/Gateway in Bridge Mode

That said, I'm impressed that you've kept this printer running for so long. I'm lucky if I can get 1-2 years out of a printer before it gives up the ghost!

Regards,

RogersCorey

[Benj416]

Thanks for the response. Thats pretty much what i thought. I might try using the existing setup and using a cheap extender or router set up as an extender and bypass the onboard wifi of the printer using a cat5 cable to the extender. In theory the printer would be hard wired to the extender yet still have a wireless connection to the wifi modem via the extender.
As for the printers longevity, I guess i've been lucky lol! It wasn't used too much over the years and it prints quite well still. And the aftermarket ink set up i'm using is dirt cheap.

[-G-]

@Benj416  How far away is the closest Pod from your printer?  They have an Ethernet port that you can also use to connect your printer to the network.

As for your printer, I saw this in HP's support forum: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printer-Wireless-Networking-Internet/No-filtering-fail/td-p/8134732

Unfortunately, it does not look like they were able to find any way to get their OfficeJet 6500a to connect.

As for other ways to connect your printer, you can also find "Ethernet to WiFi adapters" and "Ethernet to WiFi bridges" on Amazon.  You can also try using a small/cheap router, something like a TP-Link TL-WR902AC which even advertises a "Client Mode" feature that can be used for connecting an Ethernet-only device to a Wi-Fi network.  (Unfortunately, I do not have first-hand experience with any of these devices so I cannot provide you with any specific recommendations for a solution that I know will work.  Sorry.)

[Giraffee66]

I upgraded to Rogers Ignite in May, and ever since then, I have had nothing but problems with band steering.  I need it to be turned off because my security cameras, smart bulbs and switches only run on 2.4G.  All my Google home devices, smart TV, phones and tablets run on 5G.  Since May, I have spent over 8 hours over 5 separate phone calls to Ignite support over this issue.

The latest was this morning.  As has happened overnight several times now, the 5G network disappears from my wi-fi and none of my 5G dependent devices are working, they are all off line.  The Ignite app will NOT allow me to disable band steering because, I am told, I have a Rogers pod in my house.  I have been told the following:

• Uninstall and reinstall the Ignite app (never helps)
• Stop using my 2.4G devices (not an option)
• Stop using the Rogers pod (again, not an option because without the pod, I don't have coverage over my entire home)
• Someone else in your home with the Rogers Ignite app probably turned of band steering (OK, no - I am the only one in the house with the app, and even if I wanted to, the app will not give me the option to do that.)

Today, after the agent fixed it for me (again), I asked to speak to a technical manager as I am really sick and tired of this.  I did speak to one, and he said he had never heard of this problem before, and that he was going to open a ticket, but that he was 99% sure that this could be fixed by uninstalling and reinstalling the app.  Which I did after the call, but the option to enable/disable band steering simply does not exist on the app.  It's not greyed out, it's just not there at all. 

I've been a Rogers customer for over 20 years, and I'm fed up!  When my contract is up next May, I'm switching ISP's.  I don't understand why Rogers cannot make it possible to allow pods and Ignite to play nicely together, and then deny there is a problem, when clearly there is. 

Sorry, this is more of a rant than anything, but maybe some Rogers employee will see that and actually do something about this.  

[Benj416]

Thanks for the tips. I'll give it a whirl 😄

[-G-]

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@Giraffee66 wrote:

I upgraded to Rogers Ignite in May, and ever since then, I have had nothing but problems with band steering.  I need it to be turned off because my security cameras, smart bulbs and switches only run on 2.4G.  All my Google home devices, smart TV, phones and tablets run on 5G.  Since May, I have spent over 8 hours over 5 separate phone calls to Ignite support over this issue.

I've been a Rogers customer for over 20 years, and I'm fed up!  When my contract is up next May, I'm switching ISP's.  I don't understand why Rogers cannot make it possible to allow pods and Ignite to play nicely together, and then deny there is a problem, when clearly there is. 

Sorry, this is more of a rant than anything, but maybe some Rogers employee will see that and actually do something about this.  

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I hear your frustration but this is not something that Rogers can fix; it's the direction that modern Wi-Fi networks are going and unfortunately, there are some devices out there that are not compatible with Band Steering, and there are technical reasons why Band Steering needs to be enabled when you have Pods installed.

There are other ways to solve your current problem.  The simplest is to purchase a Wi-Fi access point, something like this that you can use to provide a dedicated 2.4 GHz network for your older WiFi devices that cannot connect to a modern Wi-Fi mesh network.

[Giraffee66]

Thank you for taking the time to reply.  The devices that I need to run on 2.4G are not old - all were purchased within the last 6 months.  I have a very hard time accepting that this is not a Rogers problem is due to trends in wifi technology.  I don't feel that I should have to purchase and configure additional equipment to run a dual network which Rogers claims to support.  Several of my friends have Bell Fibre and have both 2.4/5G equipment and have never had the problem that I am having.  After being a loyal customer for 20+ years, I'm switching when my contract is up.  And that makes me sad, because I feel let down by Rogers, and also because when I switch I have to export more than 20 years of email to another format, as well as change the email address I have had for more than 20 years.  

-VERY disappointed soon-to-be-ex Rogers customer. 

[-G-]

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@Giraffee66 wrote:

Thank you for taking the time to reply.  The devices that I need to run on 2.4G are not old - all were purchased within the last 6 months.

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In that case, your anger really should be directed at the vendor that made those devices, and they may work fine with the Rogers network after a firmware update.  It all depends on the technical reason(s) as to why they are having a problem either connecting or staying connected to Wi-Fi.

[Benj416]

Hi again. Just wanted to update the situation.
I can only assume the printer is erroring out when, for whatever reason, the mesh network between the pods and wifi modem (its the xb6 black tower) trys to kick the printer around between connection points (ie main router and pod 1 and/or pod 2). So far it continues to error out daily but pressing the power button resets the printer and automatically reconnects. Not convenient of course but for now it reconnects. The link you sent me from hp support is, ironically, MY post lol! Sometimes when the printer errors, it doesnt reconnect and shows a "no filtering fail" on the report. I've trird every combination of mac filtering on the xb6 ews page. On. Off. Allow. Disallow. Add mac. Block mac. Block all except printer. Allow all except printer. And every combination of the above. You could say i had a "big" mac attack...
It would seem the xb6 remembers the printers mac and just wont accept it. I did every reset of the router except an oob factory reset and it still remembers the printer. I'm reluctant to do a complete oob factory reset because my wife works from home and depends on a constant connection. Reconnecting all her equipment would be like rolling the dice. If it aint broke, dont fix it lol
It would be nice if users could have more control over the xb6 so as to be able to manually remove any device from memory. Even when using the app to "forget" a device, it remains in the routers memory as seen on the ews page.
Anyway my solution is to connect the printer via cat5 to the router, go into the printers ews page, configure it for connection to the router and do a mock connect (it wont wirelessly connect to the router while hard wired but i pressed connect anyway just for the sake of it). I then disconnected the cat5 and on the printers display panel interface connected the printer to the network.
Obviously not ideal to have to go through this periodically but if it helps someone else out there, all the better.
So my next step is to use my old cisco router which i've flashed with ddwrt and set it up as a client bridge to bypass the printers wireless ability and hard wire it to the cisco. I'll update you when i'm done.
Thanks again for the tips!

[Benj416]

One more update...
So it seems the ethernet port on my printer is getting wonky. It'll barely connect to the main router. I've used multiple cables. It wont connect to the secondary client router. The client router accepts connection to my computer and allows access to the internet through the primary router so i know its configured correctly. It would seem my poor officejet 6500 will be delegated to a usb connection to the computer.
It is what it is...

[Benj416]

Ok i think this will be my final post on this.
Its been a week and the printer hasnt errored out. I tried extending the dhcp lease on the router to forever so that it doesnt expire. On a home network i guess this is ok as you dont have a multitude of devices connecting and disconnecting daily occupying addresses. I thought setting a static ip to devices would accomplish the same thing. Anyway it may be just a coincidence but all is working good now. If the printer errors out again in the near future i'll let everybody know in a final post. Bless.