TL;DR, implementing MAC filtering can improve network latency and improve WiFi client reliability at longer ranges if you have a powerful router everyone in your neighborhood can reach...
Short story time... Once upon a time, I noted that when I was browsing the internet from my iPhone SE from the farthest room in my house from my router, that it only got 2 bars of WiFi (out of 3) from my 5GHz band and would constantly be switching to 5G cell (not to be confused with 5GHz WiFi) instead of using my router's WiFi. Now this in itself isn't so bad if you have good 5G (or LTE) cell reception and unlimited data with your cell provider (I do), however, having recently setup an PiHole and Unbound setup to reduce my ad exposure and improve my network privacy, I was a little disappointed to not be able to use it (requires you use your WiFi, not your cell provider's internet, or create. "tunnel" back to the PiHole, which is a pain and a security risk), especially on a website like DPR which has no lack of ads... So I put it in airplane mode and enabled just WiFi to force the issue by disabling cellular data. Notably, it would hold, but then drop WiFi periodically even though it's 2 bars (not 1, indicating "weak" signal). So I switched over to my 2.4GH band which "solved" that problem. Sortaof. You see 2.4GHz doesn't have as much bandwidth as 5GHz, but it does have more signal at longer range. But, 2.4GHz is also very prone to interference as everything uses 2.4GHz, so you want to avoid where possible, keep in mind.
.
Then it occurred to me, my router may be dropping my iPhone because the signal is too weak; it may not be "weak" to my iPhone, but below -70 dBi isn't crazy to drop a client. So I delved into my router's professional settings to raise the cutoff to -80dBi (from the default -70 dBi) on the 5GHz band. What happened next was intriguing... My router, stopped working correctly for 5GHz clients even right next to it! I scratched my head momentarily, and quickly dialed it back to -70dBi as it was interrupting my 1 year old's TV show which I was running from my Synology NAS over WiFi (I "rip" all my DVDs; who needs discs if you can create high quality "clickable" content that you control, without ads I might add, that don't touch your ISP data cap either).
.
After considering, raising the router's minimum client negotiation to -80dBi, was likely enabling very distant clients to attempt to negotiate my 5GHz band on my Asus GT-AX6000 router which has a "RangeBoot Plus" technology. This is notable as I've taken pride in optimizing the location of my router and band it uses to ensure I can get WiFi reception in my car while driving away from my house so that engaging directions isn't abruptly cut off (highly annoying) and I'd have to agree with Dongknows' results, the Asus GT-AX6000 simply has unbeatable range for a single router solution. Anyhow, little side note and I hope Asus makes a just as capable replacement someday (but thus far the RT-BE88U isn't as "the" dual band WiFi flagship for WiFi 7).
My hypothesis, -80dBi cutoff is permitting my router to become both inudated with client requests (even though they aren't getting fulfilled as it's password protected, not "open"), but this opened up the door that perhaps even at -70dBi, it may be getting plenty with how strong my router is. So, I went through the painful exercise of ensuring everything WiFi in my house was on, get all the MAC addresses, and input them into both my router's 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands wireless Mac filter lists and enabling. Now this will lead to pains for new devices or visitors as I'll have to either disable the filter, or open a guest band, or just add the MACs for new stuff or visiting stuff. However, the results speak for themselves...
.
After enabling MAC filtering, I'm now getting 3 full bars on my 5GHz WiFi on my iPhone from the farthest room, I don't even need to switch to 2.4GHz, and, all my WiFi requests are much smoother, and much faster across all clients in the house regardless of distance. I mean a lot faster.
MAC filtering is a not so powerful security mechanism as MAC addresses are easy to "spoof", however, by enabling MAC filtering, it's also enabling the wireless router to "throw away" superfluous WiFi handshake requests from clients it'll never serve up throughout my neighborhood improving both the responsiveness to all my clients, and, improving my network security posture as a script kiddy now has to impersonate one of my devices to "crack" my network. So it's a win-win.
.
Anyhow somewhat surprising that such a "low-tech" security approach yields significant network latency and stability gains, but it makes sense... I have a high-powered router with good signal to the entire neighborhood, you should lock that down so it doesn't even attempt to handshake clients that it'll drop (lack of correct password provided). I've never heard of this approach being used to improve signal strength, anywhere, and MAC filtering generally isn't recommended to improve network security as it's generally considered a "weak" form of network security, so I thought I'd pass along that enabling MAC filtering:
.
A. It oddly improves WiFi handling to my clients
B. It does offer an additional layer of network security to my WPA2 password, albeit a "weak" one, it's better than no layering at all as it raises the bar to brute force attacker where they have to spoof a MAC, first, before proceeding
.
Perhaps someone somewhere has mentioned this before, but I don't recall and hence my passing along that MAC filtering, apparently is still very much valid even in this decade of WPA2 and WPA3 now.
Short story time... Once upon a time, I noted that when I was browsing the internet from my iPhone SE from the farthest room in my house from my router, that it only got 2 bars of WiFi (out of 3) from my 5GHz band and would constantly be switching to 5G cell (not to be confused with 5GHz WiFi) instead of using my router's WiFi. Now this in itself isn't so bad if you have good 5G (or LTE) cell reception and unlimited data with your cell provider (I do), however, having recently setup an PiHole and Unbound setup to reduce my ad exposure and improve my network privacy, I was a little disappointed to not be able to use it (requires you use your WiFi, not your cell provider's internet, or create. "tunnel" back to the PiHole, which is a pain and a security risk), especially on a website like DPR which has no lack of ads... So I put it in airplane mode and enabled just WiFi to force the issue by disabling cellular data. Notably, it would hold, but then drop WiFi periodically even though it's 2 bars (not 1, indicating "weak" signal). So I switched over to my 2.4GH band which "solved" that problem. Sortaof. You see 2.4GHz doesn't have as much bandwidth as 5GHz, but it does have more signal at longer range. But, 2.4GHz is also very prone to interference as everything uses 2.4GHz, so you want to avoid where possible, keep in mind.
.
Then it occurred to me, my router may be dropping my iPhone because the signal is too weak; it may not be "weak" to my iPhone, but below -70 dBi isn't crazy to drop a client. So I delved into my router's professional settings to raise the cutoff to -80dBi (from the default -70 dBi) on the 5GHz band. What happened next was intriguing... My router, stopped working correctly for 5GHz clients even right next to it! I scratched my head momentarily, and quickly dialed it back to -70dBi as it was interrupting my 1 year old's TV show which I was running from my Synology NAS over WiFi (I "rip" all my DVDs; who needs discs if you can create high quality "clickable" content that you control, without ads I might add, that don't touch your ISP data cap either).
.
After considering, raising the router's minimum client negotiation to -80dBi, was likely enabling very distant clients to attempt to negotiate my 5GHz band on my Asus GT-AX6000 router which has a "RangeBoot Plus" technology. This is notable as I've taken pride in optimizing the location of my router and band it uses to ensure I can get WiFi reception in my car while driving away from my house so that engaging directions isn't abruptly cut off (highly annoying) and I'd have to agree with Dongknows' results, the Asus GT-AX6000 simply has unbeatable range for a single router solution. Anyhow, little side note and I hope Asus makes a just as capable replacement someday (but thus far the RT-BE88U isn't as "the" dual band WiFi flagship for WiFi 7).
My hypothesis, -80dBi cutoff is permitting my router to become both inudated with client requests (even though they aren't getting fulfilled as it's password protected, not "open"), but this opened up the door that perhaps even at -70dBi, it may be getting plenty with how strong my router is. So, I went through the painful exercise of ensuring everything WiFi in my house was on, get all the MAC addresses, and input them into both my router's 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands wireless Mac filter lists and enabling. Now this will lead to pains for new devices or visitors as I'll have to either disable the filter, or open a guest band, or just add the MACs for new stuff or visiting stuff. However, the results speak for themselves...
.
After enabling MAC filtering, I'm now getting 3 full bars on my 5GHz WiFi on my iPhone from the farthest room, I don't even need to switch to 2.4GHz, and, all my WiFi requests are much smoother, and much faster across all clients in the house regardless of distance. I mean a lot faster.
MAC filtering is a not so powerful security mechanism as MAC addresses are easy to "spoof", however, by enabling MAC filtering, it's also enabling the wireless router to "throw away" superfluous WiFi handshake requests from clients it'll never serve up throughout my neighborhood improving both the responsiveness to all my clients, and, improving my network security posture as a script kiddy now has to impersonate one of my devices to "crack" my network. So it's a win-win.
.
Anyhow somewhat surprising that such a "low-tech" security approach yields significant network latency and stability gains, but it makes sense... I have a high-powered router with good signal to the entire neighborhood, you should lock that down so it doesn't even attempt to handshake clients that it'll drop (lack of correct password provided). I've never heard of this approach being used to improve signal strength, anywhere, and MAC filtering generally isn't recommended to improve network security as it's generally considered a "weak" form of network security, so I thought I'd pass along that enabling MAC filtering:
.
A. It oddly improves WiFi handling to my clients
B. It does offer an additional layer of network security to my WPA2 password, albeit a "weak" one, it's better than no layering at all as it raises the bar to brute force attacker where they have to spoof a MAC, first, before proceeding
.
Perhaps someone somewhere has mentioned this before, but I don't recall and hence my passing along that MAC filtering, apparently is still very much valid even in this decade of WPA2 and WPA3 now.
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I love my GT-AX6000. Dongknows points this out btw.
