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Why are management frames showing up as 802.11a rather than 802.11ax?

asked 2024-06-05 06:58:11 +0000

AlahambraOligododo gravatar image

updated 2024-06-06 05:45:48 +0000

Guy Harris gravatar image

Dear all,

I would like to connect my computer using 802.11ax to my router, to investigate some Wifi 6 specifics with wireshark. The router settings allow for a Wifi6 connection. The wifi adapter of my computer is also Wifi 6 compatible.

However, when I capture the wifi traffic, it seems as if both the router and the computer use the 802.11a protocol, instead of 802.11ax, i.e. the capture filter wlan_radio.phy == 5 applies.

Is there any way to easily setup a Wifi 6 connection?

Background: I can capture wifi packets of my Lenovo X1 carbon. The management frames of the association requests contain "tag: HT capabilities, Tag: VHT capabilities, Ext Tag: HE capabilities". However, the provided 802.11 radio informations shows "PHY type: 802.11a (OFDM) (5)". The HE capabilities seem to contradict PHY type = 5?

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Not really a Wireshark question, also note that looking at WiFi specifics other than general traffic on Windows is problematic.

grahamb gravatar imagegrahamb ( 2024-06-05 07:52:23 +0000 )edit

Thanks! I added some background to make it a Wireshark related question.

AlahambraOligododo gravatar imageAlahambraOligododo ( 2024-06-05 08:08:21 +0000 )edit

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answered 2024-06-05 17:52:38 +0000

johnthacker gravatar image

updated 2024-06-05 18:08:21 +0000

Management frames in 802.11ax are transmitted at basic rate and will show as the 802.11a PHY - see the comment mentioned here https://gitlab.com/wireshark/wireshar...

The management frames indicate that the device supports HE for the data frames, but the management frames themselves are transmitted at basic rate with the backwards compatible PHY.

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Asked: 2024-06-05 06:58:11 +0000

Seen: 283 times

Last updated: Jun 06