关于华硕BE设备需远离802.11g或仅20MHz Wi-Fi设备的技术咨询

Hey there! Let me break down why your ASUS BE manual includes that recommendation—this all comes down to Wi-Fi interference and bandwidth efficiency, which are huge for getting the most out of your modern BE-series router.

First, let's start with the quote you pulled from the manual:

"Keep the device away from 802.11g or 20MHz only Wi-Fi devices"

Here's the breakdown of why these devices are problematic: #

• 802.11g is an old, 2.4GHz-only standard (released back in 2003) that uses a fixed 20MHz bandwidth. The 2.4GHz band is already overcrowded with everything from microwaves to smart home devices, and its channels overlap heavily. When an 802.11g device is active, it locks up a full 20MHz channel—this directly conflicts with the wider channel widths (40/80/160MHz) your ASUS BE router uses (Wi-Fi 7 is built for these wide-band, high-speed connections).
• 20MHz-only devices (even non-802.11g ones) force a bottleneck: Newer Wi-Fi 6/7 routers use channel bonding to combine multiple 20MHz channels into wider ones for faster speeds. But if a 20MHz-only device is on the same network, the router has to scale back its channel width to 20MHz to avoid collisions. Imagine trying to use a 4-lane highway but being stuck in one lane because a slow car is blocking the rest—your throughput drops drastically.
• Legacy standards lack modern efficiency features: 802.11g doesn't support MU-MIMO or OFDMA, which your BE router relies on to handle multiple devices at once without lag. These old devices cause constant "channel contention"—they fight for airtime with your newer devices, leading to dropped connections, slow speeds, and frustrating lag for things like streaming or gaming.

To answer your follow-up question: Yes, these devices are quite different from newer standards: #

• 802.11a uses the less crowded 5GHz band (so it doesn't clog up 2.4GHz like g does), while 802.11b is also 2.4GHz but even slower and less efficient. 802.11n (Wi-Fi 4) supports both bands and can use 40MHz bandwidth, so it's far less disruptive than pure 802.11g.
• Devices with 40/80/160MHz bandwidth are designed for Wi-Fi 6/7 and use channel bonding intelligently. They can coexist better with other wide-band devices, as they're built to share the airspace efficiently without forcing everyone to slow down to 20MHz.

Quick tip if you can't ditch old devices: #

If you have to keep some 802.11g or 20MHz-only devices around, set up a separate 2.4GHz network for them (most BE routers support dual-band or tri-band setups). Then connect your high-speed devices (phones, laptops, consoles) to the 5GHz or 6GHz band—this will isolate the interference and keep your main network running at full speed.

备注：内容来源于stack exchange，提问作者Jack the Ranger