Some overseas wifi7 clients cannot search for 6GHz wireless signals

Cloud AP mode, 6 GHz binding dot1x and PSK encryption service template

The 6 GHz radio frequency of the on-site Cloud AP (WA7539) is bound to a dot1x and a PSK encryption service template.

On-site tests were conducted on: iPhone 16pro Max, Samsung S24, Windows PC equipped with Realtek 8852CE WiFi 6E network card, and Windows PC equipped with Intel AX211 network card.

Only the Windows PC equipped with Realtek 8852CE WiFi 6E network card can search for 6 GHz wireless services and can access and use the service normally, while the other three terminals cannot search for 6 GHz wireless services.

The main service configurations of Cloud AP are as follows:

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wlan global-configuration

 region-code xx           // Country codes supporting 6 GHz channels are specified

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wlan service-template a1

 ssid akv

 akm mode psk

 preshared-key pass-phrase cipher xxx

 cipher-suite ccmp

 security-ie rsn

 wpa3 personal mandatory

 akm sae pwe h2e

 pmf mandatory

 bss transition-management enable

 service-template enable

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wlan service-template b1

 ssid akm

 akm mode dot1x

 cipher-suite ccmp

 security-ie rsn

 wpa3 enterprise-only-mode

 client-security authentication-mode dot1x

 dot1x domain ipenet

 bss transition-management enable

 service-template enable

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wlan service-template kk

 ssid kkm

 beacon ssid-hide

 service-template enable

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interface WLAN-Radio1/0/1

 service-template a1

 service-template b1

 type dot11be

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interface WLAN-Radio1/0/2

 shutdown

 channel band-width 20

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1. Check whether the service template is configured with beacon ssid-hide, but find that no related commands are configured;

2. Check whether the correct region code for the country or region is configured in the global view of Cloud AP, and check whether the corresponding region code supports 6 GHz on the Wi-Fi Alliance website (https://www.****.***/regulations-enabling-6-ghz-wi-fi). It is found that it is supported.

3. We asked whether some of the terminals used on site were purchased locally or from places like mainland China where regulations do not support 6 GHz. This is because terminal manufacturers will process the terminal's own WiFi chip based on whether the regulations of the country or region of sale support 6 GHz. For example, the iPhone 16 series terminals purchased in mainland China support WiFi7, but their WiFi chips block the discovery function of the 6 GHz frequency band. After asking, the on-site feedback terminals were also purchased locally.

4. First, the service template bound to the 6 GHz radio of Wi-Fi 7 must use any of the following methods: PSK encryption, dot1x authentication, or OWE. Wireless services without access layer encryption cannot be bound to the 6 GHz radio. At the same time, referring to the configuration parameters of PSK or dot1x of WPA3 in the "Introduction to Wi-Fi 7", it is found that there is no problem with the configuration of the service template bound to the 6 GHz radio.

5. We tried to adjust the channel of the 6 GHz Radio. The country where we were located only supports the low frequency band of 6 GHz, so we tried to adjust the channel and bandwidth of interface Wlan-Ratio 1/0/1. The result was that the terminals that could not discover the 6 GHz service were still unable to discover it, while the terminals that could previously discover the 6 GHz service were still able to discover and associate with the 6 GHz wireless service normally.

6. It is learned that the network cards of some terminals, such as iPhone (models that support the 6 GHz frequency band), only support the out-of-band discovery function when searching for 6 GHz services (that is, the terminal discovers the 6 GHz service through the BSSID, channel and SSID information of the 6 GHz wireless service carried in the Beacon frame sent by the AP's 5 GHz or 2.4 GHz radio port), but do not support the in-band discovery function (that is, the terminal network card automatically scans each 6 GHz channel and discovers the 6 GHz wireless service in the same way as discovering 5 GHz or 2.4 GHz services).

In this regard:

① First check whether the out-of-band discovery function is enabled in the global view of Cloud AP. This function is enabled by default, so according to the configuration of Cloud AP, it is judged that this function is enabled by default.

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wlan global-configuration

wlan out-band 6g-discovery enable

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② In order for the out-of-band discovery function to be effective, at least one 5 GHz or 2.4 GHz radio port of the WiFi7 AP must be up and bound to at least one enabled wireless service template (encryption is not required). This is mainly to allow the 5 GHz or 2.4 GHz radio port to release Beacon frames carrying 6 GHz service information, so that the terminal can discover 6 GHz wireless services through the out-of-band discovery function. After checking the configuration, it was found that the wireless service was not bound to the Radio 2 port of the Cloud AP on site, and the interface was also shut down:

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interface WLAN-Radio1/0/2

 shutdown

 channel band-width 20

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Therefore, a new service template was created on the Cloud AP and enabled, then bound to Radio 2 and undo shutdown.

After this operation, the iPhone 16pro Max and Samsung S24 can also search for 6 GHz wireless services and access them normally, but the Windows PC equipped with the Intel AX211 network card still cannot search for 6 GHz wireless services.

7. On the Windows PC equipped with the Intel AX211 network card, we entered the command netsh wlan show drivers in cmd and found that the driver version was relatively old. Therefore, we downloaded the latest driver for the corresponding network card from the Intel official website and installed it. Then the Windows PC equipped with the Intel AX211 network card could search for the 6 GHz channel and associate normally.

1. Bind an enabled service template to Radio 2, undo shutdown the interface, and make the out-of-band discovery function work effectively;

2. For Windows PCs equipped with Intel AX211 network cards, update the network card driver to the latest version.