Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2021 11:57 Post subject: Re: Ethernet and WiFi NIC Questions
abeaty wrote:
What is the benefit of having one NIC for 2.4 GHz and a separate one for 5 GHz? Is this really necessary?
Also what is the minimum number of Ethernet NICs I need for an Access Point?
Thanks.
There is no point using a PC as an AP with two wifi cards.
The pc would be better suited if your using it as the gateway with DHCP and firewall turned on and managing your connections to a cable modem or DSL modem or fiber modem.
Its cheaper to buy a Netgear AC1450 Dual band router and put DD-WRT on it. That way you have an lower power consumption AP with dual band radio's that does 2.4GHz and 5GHz.
The Netgear AC1450 has a dual core processor at 800MHz with 256mb of ram and 128mb flash memory. Has two USB ports one is 3.0 and the other is 2.0. Plenty of horse power for AP mode which is what I got two them at house in that configuration and works very well. They are under $35 on ebay for those.
The reason why on using two wifi cards for 2.4 and 5GHz is because the radio can only operate in 1 mode. It can't do both at the same time. That is why routers with dual band or tri band have 2 or 3 radio's in them. Each one does its own band.
