Hey, i got my Fairphone some time ago, and i now realized that, when i use the 5ghz Hotspot option it just dont work, it always uses 2,4ghz, but i NEED 5ghz because i got a 5ghz wifi card in my pc… why do i even have the option for 5ghz if its fake??? My old Neffos n1 is perfect using 5ghz…
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Hello and welcome to the forum. I believe that this is due to the law that prohibits usage of 5GHz hotspots in many European countries. I don’t really understand the reasoning, but that’s just how it is. Blame EU, not FP.
I can’t find any official statement, but the same applies to Xiaomi:
And Intel:
It is possible that there is a workaround, but I don’t know of any and it would probably require rooting your device.
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So, im from Germany, and like i said my old phone from 2 years ago, does it without any problems, also the fairphone hast the 2 options, but it just dont work, i think it could be an android related error.
My old phone also supports it. But from what I understand, basically any new phone sold in EU shouldn’t support it. And if it does, it is basically breaking the law. Maybe there is an exception for cases when the hotspot uses a different band (due to Xiaomi, only bands 1 & 2 are banned), but I’m not sure. You can try to #contactsupport, they will probably be able to give you the best answer.
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thanks, so i need to look for a workaround, or android hack for it i assume… ty for explaining tho!
You can connect to 2.4GHz networks without any problem with such a wifi card, or do you mean that you want to use 5GHz because there are too many 2.4GHz networks around you, causing bad signal quality on that band?
i know that i can connect via 2.4 but i have reasons to use 5ghz, this card is only stable with 5ghz. plus the many other 2,4ghz here in the building.
It might not be a perfect solution, but you can also connect the FP4 to a computer using USB tethering (or Bluetooth, but that depends on the 2.4GHz band just as well). That way you won’t be disturbed by any wireless networks around you.
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I’d be interested in a work around for this. Kind of makes the 5g connectivity half as good without being able to tether it.
Can confirm that usb tethering supports full speeds.
I think you are mixing two unrelated things together. The first is the 5G (cellular) connectivity and the second is 5GHz Wi-Fi hostpot. You can tether to 5G over 2.4GHz Wi-Fi hotspot just fine.
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yes, Europe has restrctions on the the usage of 5ghz bands because high priority users like flight control and military also use 5ghz bands (radar signals). That is why you are prohibited by law to use 5ghz wifi hotspots in Europe. Also your home router has to continuously scan for high priority users and shut down your 5ghz channels for at least 10mins whenever a high priority signal is received. This is called Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS). Basically all wifi routers use band steering to seamlessly steer devices from 5ghz to 2.4ghz networks for the duration of the 5ghz downtime, so you do not realize that your 5ghz network is actually down. Unfortunately I live in an area with a lot of radar signals, which means my 5ghz networks have more downtime than they are online, so I practically never use them. Turns out, band steering is not as seamless as I’d like.
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AFAIK channels 36 to 48 can be used without DFS. So the hotspot function could be limited in 5GHz band to those channels… 
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That is only allowed indoors, see List of WLAN channels - Wikipedia (also look at the legend below, the “/” means and, not or.) For a router you can be reasonably sure that it’s placed indoors (unless it is specifically made for external uses), but for a phone there is no way to be sure that it is indoors.
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I’m not confusing 5g mobile with 5ghz frequency wifi. I’m saying that you can’t get the full speeds of your 5g mobile connection with 2.4ghz which isn’t great.
2.4Ghz wifi connection only supports speeds of ~130 Mbps.
5.0Ghz supports up to ~1300 Mbps
If your 5g mobile connection is able to do ~400 Mbps you’ll only be able to use ~130 Mbps of that on the 2.4ghz wifi channel.
Thanks for explaining why it’s been banned in Europe though @R2D2, you’d have thought they could support DFS on phones?
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