Why Narrower Wi-Fi Channel Widths Provide Better Enterprise Performance

Summary

This article explains why using narrower channel widths (20 MHz or 40 MHz) in 5 GHz Wi-Fi networks provides better performance for enterprise environments. The key insight is that while wider channels (80 MHz, 160 MHz) offer higher theoretical speeds, they reduce the number of available channels, leading to increased co-channel interference and degraded performance in dense deployments. The article argues that the "need for speed" mentality often results in choosing wider channels that actually make Wi-Fi worse in real-world enterprise scenarios where many devices need to share the spectrum efficiently.