[PROBLEM] No WiFi 6 with MT7921 USB Wifi stick

[TheOldPresbyope]

@schwidi

Thanks for the info.


I'm unaware of a simple way in Linux to determine the WiFi connection details down to the specific protocol level. (as opposed to MS Windows, MacOS, and Android).

However, the fact that the Linux configuration utility iw returns HE capability info suggests to me that your adapter and associated kernel driver possibly support IEEE 802.11ax (aka WiFi 6) and IEEE 802.11be (aka WiFi 7).

For reference

IEEE        Wi-Fi           Mode
Std        Alliance
           "mark"
802.11n    Wi-Fi 4    HT (High Throughput)
802.11ac   Wi-Fi 5    VHT (Very High Throughput)
802.11ax   Wi-Fi 6    HE (High Efficiency)
802.11be   Wi-Fi 7    EHT (Extremely High Throughput)

Note: I used "mark" to point out these are marketing labels

How did you determine that you have no WiFi 6?

Regards,
Kent

[Tim Curtis]

Try the command below. Its used in Network Config

Code:

nmcli -f CHAN,RATE,SECURITY,SSID -t dev wifi

[TheOldPresbyope]

Try the command below. Its used in Network Config

Code:

nmcli -f CHAN,RATE,SECURITY,SSID -t dev wifi

I suppose one could try to infer the protocol in play based on the reported rate but that's problematic because the supplicant and the access point negotiate the modulation and coding scheme (MCS) they'll use, which affects the rate.

I can't find any option in the commands available in Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm which will report the protocol directly. Interestingly, there's info on the InterWeb™ which suggests

Code:

iw dev wlan0 link

should report HE, VHT, etc., and the MCS index as part of its output but the version we have (5.19) doesn't appear to do that. The current source-code version in debian testing is much newer but I don't know if building binary from it would help.

Sigh.

Regards,
Kent

[Tim Curtis]

Try the command below. Its used in Network Config

Code:

nmcli -f CHAN,RATE,SECURITY,SSID -t dev wifi

I suppose one could try to infer the protocol in play based on the reported rate but that's problematic because the supplicant and the access point negotiate the modulation and coding scheme (MCS) they'll use, which affects the rate.

I can't find any option in the commands available in Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm which will report the protocol directly. Interestingly, there's info on the InterWeb™ which suggests

Code:

iw dev wlan0 link

should report HE, VHT, etc., and the MCS index as part of its output but the version we have (5.19) doesn't appear to do that. The current source-code version in debian testing is much newer but I don't know if building binary from it would help.

Sigh.

Regards,
Kent

Channel|Rate|Protocol|SSID

Code:

pi@moode9:~ $ nmcli -f CHAN,RATE,SECURITY,SSID -t dev wifi
44:405 Mbit/s:WPA2:AirnetN5

[schwidi]

As I see it, the WiFi Stick is connected to the 5GHz network and channel 48.

pi@Moode-Wohnzimmer:~ $ nmcli -f CHAN,RATE,SECURITY,SSID -t dev wifi
48:540 Mbit/s:WPA2:FRITZ!Box 7490
pi@Moode-Wohnzimmer:~ $

But Moodaudio still shows 130Mbt/s and channel 6.

Wireless networks on the 5Ghz band generally perform better than those on the 2.4GHz band due to less congestion and interferrence from other networks.

Address method

Address: 192.168.178.50
Network: FRITZ!Box 7490 (44:f7:70:b1:c8:5b), WPA2
Channel: 6, 130 Mbit/s, qual 100%, level -24 dBm

If I enter the iw dev wlan0 link command, it comes.

pi@Moode-Wohnzimmer:~ $ iw dev wlan0 link
Connected to 44:f7:70:b1:c8:5b (on wlan0)
       SSID: FRITZ!Box 7490
       freq: 5240
       RX: 37236242 bytes (34617 packets)
       TX: 4980510 bytes (25890 packets)
       signal: -30 dBm
       rx bitrate: 1200.9 MBit/s 80MHz HE-MCS 11 HE-NSS 2 HE-GI 0 HE-DCM 0
       tx bitrate: 1200.9 MBit/s 80MHz HE-MCS 11 HE-NSS 2 HE-GI 0 HE-DCM 0

       bss flags:      short-slot-time
       dtim period:    1
       beacon int:     100

Funny, why does Moodaudio not show the right transmission speed and the WiFi type.

To mention it again, the FRITZ! Box 7490 is the modem, the WiFi Router is an Xiaomi BE6500

[Tim Curtis]

As I see it, the WiFi Stick is connected to the 5GHz network and channel 48.

pi@Moode-Wohnzimmer:~ $ nmcli -f CHAN,RATE,SECURITY,SSID -t dev wifi
48:540 Mbit/s:WPA2:FRITZ!Box 7490
pi@Moode-Wohnzimmer:~ $

But Moodaudio still shows 130Mbt/s and channel 6.

Wireless networks on the 5Ghz band generally perform better than those on the 2.4GHz band due to less congestion and interferrence from other networks.

Address method

Address: 192.168.178.50
Network: FRITZ!Box 7490 (44:f7:70:b1:c8:5b), WPA2
Channel: 6, 130 Mbit/s, qual 100%, level -24 dBm

If I enter the iw dev wlan0 link command, it comes.

pi@Moode-Wohnzimmer:~ $ iw dev wlan0 link
Connected to 44:f7:70:b1:c8:5b (on wlan0)
       SSID: FRITZ!Box 7490
       freq: 5240
       RX: 37236242 bytes (34617 packets)
       TX: 4980510 bytes (25890 packets)
       signal: -30 dBm
       rx bitrate: 1200.9 MBit/s 80MHz HE-MCS 11 HE-NSS 2 HE-GI 0 HE-DCM 0
       tx bitrate: 1200.9 MBit/s 80MHz HE-MCS 11 HE-NSS 2 HE-GI 0 HE-DCM 0

       bss flags:      short-slot-time
       dtim period:    1
       beacon int:     100

Funny, why does Moodaudio not show the right transmission speed and the WiFi type.

To mention it again, the FRITZ! Box 7490 is the modem, the WiFi Router is an Xiaomi BE6500

I tested on a couple of my systems and the info on Network Config matches the command output. Its not obvious to me what might be happening on your end.

Code:

# Get the connected SSID
pi@moode9:~ $ iwconfig wlan0 | grep 'ESSID' | awk -F':' '{print $2}' | awk -F'"' '{print $2}'
AirnetN5

# Get the channel|rate|secprotocol for the connected SSID
pi@moode9:~ $ nmcli -f CHAN,RATE,SECURITY,SSID -t dev wifi | grep "AirnetN5"
44:405 Mbit/s:WPA2:AirnetN5

[TheOldPresbyope]

@schwidi

Looks like I have to eat my words

You report

Code:

pi@Moode-Wohnzimmer:~ $ iw dev wlan0 link
Connected to 44:f7:70:b1:c8:5b (on wlan0)
      SSID: FRITZ!Box 7490
      freq: 5240
      RX: 37236242 bytes (34617 packets)
      TX: 4980510 bytes (25890 packets)
      signal: -30 dBm
      rx bitrate: 1200.9 MBit/s 80MHz HE-MCS 11 HE-NSS 2 HE-GI 0 HE-DCM 0
      tx bitrate: 1200.9 MBit/s 80MHz HE-MCS 11 HE-NSS 2 HE-GI 0 HE-DCM 0

The HE-* entries shows clearly that the connection is using IEEE 802.11ax (e.g., WiFi 6) protocol. I thought I wasn't seeing similar output when on a system I "knew" was similarly connected. Obviously, I was mistaken.

Thanks for posting that.


Regards,
Kent

[schwidi]

Then the WiFi Stick is connected to WiFi 6 but shows WiFi 4 under Modeaudio Network.

I don't think that's so bad, but I was very confused.