I work in a large corporation with a complicated wireless network that includes 2.4GHz and 5GHz access points of varying speeds. All Access points use the same SSID and passwords. I connect with a wireless card that includes software that lets me see the various access points, what channel they are on, and whether they are 2.4GHz or 5GHz -- but my co workers do not have that luxury, they see a single SSID on the default Windows network connections screen. When any of us connect, we don't get the fastest connection, or even the 5GHz connection -- we get speeds in the 14MBps range. Again, because I have software for my wireless adapter I can log out of the iffy connection, pick a different channel and get 270MBps. From time to time, though, I check and discover I've been switched to a different channel. That's a lot of background -- here are the actual questions:
1) Is there a way to force the computer to join to the fastest available connection? I'm guessing it is defaulting to closest access point.
2) is there a way to prevent the system from downgrading the connection?
3) Are there tools that would allow co-workers to see all available channels and choose among them?