Legacy WiFi Modes

[u/StressOdd5093]

So, we recently invested $200k on a WiFi refresh to bring us up to latest and of course I tried to update as much of our SSIDs to WPA3 to support latest things (fine for district devices) but I’m already encountering phones 5 years or older that don’t even support the WPA2/3 mixed mode. I also spent time today connecting and reconfiguring a single AP for 2.4ghz to allow a laser etcher printer to connect. Are we just doomed to keep these legacy protocols around forever?

[u/TheRuffRaccoon]

Welcome to K12….no matter what I try to do to bring us up to date, there is always that one thing holding us back because people refuse to change or update.

[u/Dazpoet → u/TheRuffRaccoon]

I still have a usb floppy drive reader in my office. I'm planning to get rid of it once I go a whole year without using it. I keep thinking there surely cannot be more floppies laying around but I'm continuosly proven wrong.

[u/Aur0nx]

We have a WPA 3 / WiFi7 network for district owned devices (windows, IPads, Chromebooks) and a 2.4/5 WPA 2 PSK network for IoT devices that is internet only and isolated from the internal network.

[u/SgtMcruff]

If mixed mode isn't working, then I would guess device isn't able to do 802.11w protected frames.

Going to be stuck with 2.4ghz for your random Iot devices. They all seem to use esp32. A esp32 with 5ghz and wpa3 support only released like last year. So can get rid of 2.4ghz IoT wifi in a decade. 😆

[u/QPC414]

If the phones are 5 years old, they are definately due for a refresh and a review of the cellular plans and if the positions still need them, and why. Good chance to get them under MDM if they are not already.

[u/StressOdd5093 → u/QPC414]

Personal phones but good point.

[u/BWMerlin]

A few years back in an effort to try and improve WiFi performance for users I also tried to disable the 2.4GHZ band and likewise found that I had to renable it for a printer on a select WAP.

So yes, we are going to have to keep the 2.4GHZ band which I believe did get some updates in the WiFi 7 specs (please correct me if I am wrong) as well as older protocols around for a lot longer as particularly, but not always, cheap devices don't put in better/newer WiFi cards to keep costs low.

[u/reviewmynotes]

Legacy protocols cause lag for newer devices. Look up a concept called "air time." This is a reason to replace things that don't support current or immediately previous specs, e.g. IEEE-802.11ax and .11ac. Checking Wikipedia, I see that the introduction of .11ac was 2013 and .11n was 2009. Tell people that you're beginning to phase out things that were replaced 13+ years ago or at least 17+ years ago and then work toward that goal. By the time you finish, they'll be 15-20 years old and you can finally turn them off. Better yet, you'll have the ability to have a rolling window to phase out things as they age.

For what it's worth, WPA3 is from 2018, or 8 years old already. So I don't think it's unreasonable to tell people that you didn't support devices more than 7 years old. Apple doesn't support security updates for hardware older than about 7 years. Microsoft topically only supports security updates for 10 years. The newer Google Pixels get updates for something like 7 years, I believe. Android in general is much worse than that. ChromeOS is at most 10 years. So saying, "We can't support connecting an insecure device to the network. It's a matter of protecting student and employee data," would be a reasonable stance to take off a device can't handle something that's been out for 8 years.

[u/sammy5678]

Tech debt. You have to document anything that is holding you back and show the negative impact it has on security or environment.

You may be able to run a small separate device to get that engraver online, but those phones I'd push to upgrade or replace.

[u/Harry_Smutter]

Not your responsibility to provide WiFi for personal devices. Also, does the printer not have a network port?? If so, run a line for it. 2.4 is completely gone in our district and we haven't run into any district issues.

Edit: I assume you mean cellular phones for the WPA 2/3 part.

[u/StressOdd5093 → u/Harry_Smutter]

Yes cell phones and the people who pay my check ask that we allowed personal phones on WiFi. The trick is we are a no cell bell to bell state, so balancing protected WiFi for staff personal devices with guest for student devices outside of classroom time proves challenging!