Country/Region in Advanced Wireless settings

[Sysres]

This issue exist for very long time since original Shibby firmware. For some reason default Country/Region in ARM branch is “Singapore”. This creates confusion as different countries allow different set of channels and power limits. FT has huge list of countries under Advanced Wireless settings, including some strange and confusing names like X0, X1, X2, XY, Y1, Y2, etc. This is definitely well overdue for review and clean-up.

By the way, if I change 5GHz country/region to USA this band stops working completely, so I have no choice but to keep it at Singapore. But Singapore and other countries offer some channels not available in USA and Canada. With Canada being more restrictive then USA. Also Singapore has different power limits for some channels, see link below:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels

Another missing option at 2.4 GHz basic settings is Channel Width 20/40 MHz Coexistence. It has been introduced by Netgear long time ago to address and solve heavy interference.

https://robotpoweredhome.com/20-40-mhz-coexistence-netgear-router/

In USA/Canada FCC allows only channels 1 - 11 and as such only single none-overlapping 40 MHz channel is available for everyone. For some reason FT assigns 40 MHz width by default while it should be either 20 MHz or 20/40 MHz. When you select 40 MHz in heavily congested areas the 2.4 GHz wireless will slow down significantly or may even stop working completely.

When it comes to 2.4 GHz Country/Region selection there should be only 3 possible choices: Japan, North America and All other countries. It all comes to channels 12 - 14 availability.

When it comes to 5 GHz Country/Region selection there are more options (20 different possibilities to be exact) but definitely not 100+ we presently have listed in FT. All channels by countries are listed in that Wikipedia article I mentioned earlier.

Same is applicable to default wireless transmit power setting based on the country. Not all routers support this option but those which support should comply with local regulations.

In any case the review of advanced wireless setting is long overdue.

[DJK]

Added note regarding Country/Region and Country Rev: I believe there use to be a notation in the Notes stating you must have a matched pair, now it “shows” you. Seems many/some users overlook this and don’t get the rev set.

Weather the believe they know what they’re doing or just don’t bother with the Notes drop down (so it’s their own fault). Maybe add a notation in the settings area if you change one ie) Country/Region you need to have the proper corresponding Country Rev.

Since they supposedly need to be the same (it’s implied by asking to “please select the same”)… once one is set - it doesn’t allow the other to be changed.

[M_ars]

For wireless country/region → big change/improvement in my opinion since 2020.6 release (SDK6) and since 2022.4/2022.5 also for MIPS RT-N (+ wl driver update for SDK5 → really a huge update for this older routers :) )

Shibby/AdvancedTomato and other (older) Tomato version have only a country selection (and only partly working and applied) → choosing a country only (without a poper rev-code) will not work in most cases and lead to wl problems (channels, power, … )

Please have a look at the wiki (also linked at the GUI advanced-wireless page)

https://wiki.freshtomato.org/doku.php/advanced-wireless#country_region

In your example: Changing Country Singapore → USA will not work (also noted at the wiki)

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But i agree with you, there is room for improvement like the “confusing names” (X0, X1, X2, XY, Y1, Y2 … )

[Sysres]

@M_ars, as always I appreciate your input and guidance. But, as I mentioned earlier, I am one of many users who migrated from original Shibby v132 into FT just late last year and didn’t follow Tomato development during long period. I hope you agree that reading through hundreds of lines in the Changelog is absolutely unrealistic and even if someone would actually do it, trying to remember what was changed is even more unrealistic. Your are a programmer and firmware developer and obviously remember every change you ever made. There are 2 dozen of lines in Advanced Wireless settings and I obviously missed that a new one called “Country Rev” has been added. I am a mechanical engineer and most of my experience is with Windows networking. As many FT users I don’t play with settings I am not familiar with. @DJK is absolutely right, you should put some sort of a note in BOLD TEXT right next to the Country/Region that Country Rev must be changed accordingly. Frankly, for an average FT user your option of selecting proper wireless country/rev is very confusing and none intuitive. Most importantly it is not what we call in America “idiot proof” as presently it allows an end user to select and save conflicting options. Like I and many other users did by selecting USA with Rev 12. More reasons to create an initial setup wizard suggested by @rs232 earlier. I would also suggest to review Advanced Wireless options and take Country/Region and Country Rev out of there and move it to Basic Network settings which is where it really belongs. I can only imagine how many FT users are out there with wrong country/rev programmed into their routers. Many users probably never changed the country code and use default Singapore. And then they complain in forums that they can’t connect their wireless printer, extenders, can’t run wireless survey etc., etc.

By the way, why default Country is Singapore? According to Tomatoanon, 50.4% of all Tomato users are in USA. Next largest group is in Poland and Canada with 9.7% each. And Singapore didn’t even make it to top the 10 list! I propose to change the default Country to USA. Uncle Sam would really appreciate it!

Also, I propose to simplify the Country/Rev selection and make it “idiot proof” by preventing incompatible options from being selected. For example, an end user selects EU and Country Rev line would automatically give you a pull down menu with only valid options: 13, 33, 53, 78. By the way, what is the difference between them? Is there a document or spreadsheet describing all Country Rev options? There is nothing mentioned about it in the WiKi page. The most confusing is USA. Why do you have another country Q2 designated for USA? Can I simply use USA with Rev 96, 33, 40 instead of 0? What setting should be used for RT-AC1900P? How do you expect an average user to decipher all these confusing settings? Again, as I proposed initially this should be reviewed and simplified.

Separate topic is wireless channels. On my home RT-AC1900P I changed the country to USA with Rev 0 and now wireless works but all I see in 5 GHz band is channels 36 and 149. I also tried Q2 with Rev 40 recommended for RT-AC68U and same thing. Other channels 52, 100, 116, 132 are missing from selection. These channels have been legally available in USA for a number of years. Below is a screenshot from my WatchGuard AP325 that I manage at work. As you can see “United Stated” is hard-coded as “Country of Operation” and can’t be changed. But available channels are clearly listed in pull down menu and include 36, 52, 100, 116, 132 and 149. This is for AC mode or 80 MHz width. Transmit power can go up to 26 dB. Same situation is with EnGenius WAPs sold in USA market that I manage at couple other places. I can send you screenshots of those as well if you would like. This all corresponds to allowed WiFi channels list from the Wikipedia article that I mentioned earlier.

And finally, you didn’t mention anything about my proposal to include 20/40 MHz width option at 2.4 GHz band. I believe you have Netgear router at home and should be familiar with this option they introduced. Thanks a lot for your hard work.

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[DJK]

One, of many, point I got from this - setting Country/Region [Rev] is reasonably important. Generally, Advanced settings aren’t something a user should need to configure for basic function. I don’t believe any/many of theses actually need changed… unless someone really has more than a clue or are troubleshooting and have a credible source - these aren’t really trial & error stuff.

Putting a perspective on things using TomatoAnon stats may provide a “default” to consider.