I'm not sure there's really a solution to that issue though? There are strict limits on the channels you can utilize, and the power output of radios. There's no magic bullet to pass through physical objects.
The combo Wifi/modem that Xfinity gives out these days is also quite good, as much as I hate devices like that.
The truth is, WiFi is mainly a "problem" for nerds like me who LARP as network administrators and want faster-than-gigabit speeds in every corner of their home.
The only time I can recall when it wasn't for goofy reasons, was the launch of the Intel Puma chipset, where it would suffer from a CPU issue causing packet loss, or freeze until hard restarted.
More reading here: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/hardware/lawsuit-brewi...
Uh, I have a beef with this. I worked in a hospital (multiple medical facilities actually), and there are many, many medical locations have wifi poorly rolled out.
Hospitals are places that look nothing like a house from an electromagnetic perspective. If you don't put stuff in the right places, it won't work well. But if you do it right, then it works fine. And that's true of old buildings and new ones.
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EDIT - to clarify, it's not the wifi, it's the design of the wifi network (hotspot locations, backhaul, etc). It has nothing to do with wifi wireless technology itself.
Wi-Fi is congested because (1) lots of neighbors, especially in urban areas, and especially on lower bands where the signal penetrates walls better, and (2) unlicensed devices have to tolerate interference from other unlicensed devices, and (3) limited overall spectrum bandwidth, particularly as you go down the spectrum.
1.2 GHz would have all these same problems, but worse by being at a lower band.
This is an issue because some channels don't overlap, so if there's interference on a particular channel, your throughput is going to tank. Additionally, if the gateway/router/ap is always switching channels this will cause low power devices (nearly anything mobile) to disconnect and attempt to reconnect.
I'm still under the assumption that it's preferred to pull a Wifi survey before deploying any hardware so that it can be setup properly to function reliably.
Mesh WiFi is common for consumers, and putting the mesh backhaul on higher frequencies frees up spectrum.
What we really need of course is like, another entire GB of low frequency ISM spectrum, though.
Seems like there's a bit of spectrum that could easily be freed up if they just took it from the commercial and public safety radios, which could probably use an upgrade anyway.
Spending a few billion giving them all spectrum efficient digital radios with a cellular fallback seems like it might be in the public's interest.
If they tried I would imagine they could provide make something so much more reliable, nobody would even think of complaining.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I recall the opposite. Lower frequencies pass through material better, and are less likely to be disrupted by ingress (foreign signal operating on the same frequency), where as higher frequencies have the ability to pass on more information. My previous time as a headend Coax/fiber technician has lead me to believe this. It's one of the reasons for example, Comcast utilized the lowest frequencies for it's upstream data pipeline, and the higher frequencies are for the downstream pipeline.
Agree on getting other systems off of the 2.4ghz band, but you still run into the throughput problem with that band.
5Ghz still goes through a few walls, kinda, mostly, so you can use it for closely spaced repeaters, kinda.
Which also means the 2.4ghz part can be turned down a lot, because it's only got to go to the nearest repeater, if you even need a 2.4ghz link at all for anything but IoT.
None of this applies to typical HN readers though, who all seem to be running an HFT stock exchange in their basement and need 10gbit at 0.5ms latency, but for the rest of us if it's good enough for 1080p Netflix and 720p zoom calls it's perfectly fine.
Except when the printer disappears despite everything having a strong signal because of mesh bugs... then it's not fine.
In busy WiFi environments like cities, there are probably even bigger gains to be had - tricks like CDMA and long FEC codes to allow your message to still be received whilst others are transmitting.