78 MACWORLD JANUARY 2022
WORKINGMAC NAME YOUR WI-FI NETWORKS FOR ROAMINGor typing them in. (And remember that you
can share Wi-Fi passwords in a variety of
ways [fave.co/3lH3Z5d] among your
devices and between people in your
contacts list, as well as with QR Codes.)
Most modern Wi-Fi gateways include
two separate radio systems, one for each of
the two major frequency bands available for
Wi-Fi, 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. (Some even
have three—one in 2.4 GHz and two in 5
GHz—and 6 GHz Wi-Fi networks are
coming soon in the United States.) During
setup, the software wizard will often
suggest that you name one network “Your
Home Network” and the other “Your Home
Network-5 GHz,” or will automatically name
them for you. Not only is this ugly and
inconsistent—it breaks roaming.
The only reason to separate 2.4 GHz
and 5 GHz networks with distinct names is
if you want to effectively provide two
separate roaming networks that your
devices can use. That’s useful only if you
have a lot of older equipment that bogs
down the 5 GHz network. Gateways can
use multiple techniques to deliver several
times the throughput on a 5 GHz network
as on a 2.4 GHz one, making this setup
ideal for carrying multiple video streams or
high-volume data, like network backups. If
you name your 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz
networks differently in each Wi-Fi gateway,
you can connect your slower or older
devices to the 2.4 GHz network by its
All of my access points fall under a single
name on my local network.unique name and your more demanding
ones to the 5 GHz one by its moniker. But,
please, put your unique spin on the names
“Slow Network” and “Fast Network” to
make it clear to yourself which is which.
Apple offers no options to control
roaming on its devices. It unifies all
identically named and protected networks
into a single item you can select anywhere
a list of Wi-Fi networks appears. Once
selected, a device’s operating system
navigates when it thinks the signal is weak
enough that it needs to hop over to
another network. This should be seamless
among same-named network devices;
switching to another network can
introduce a short delay, which can
interrupt persistent or continuous network
connections, like a volume mounted in the
Finder or a video stream. ■