Your PS5 May Have Faster Internet
You know your Wi-Fi is fast. (In any case, you pay your Internet company enough for this). So why are games loading so slowly on your PS5? Why do you see such a big lag when playing online? Why is PS Remote Play almost impossible to use?
It’s probably not your Wi-Fi or your PlayStation. You are simply using the wrong connection.
Not all Wi-Fi bands are the same
Your home Wi-Fi network is divided into two bands : 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. The 2.4 GHz band is slower but has a longer range. This means that you can access it from other rooms without problems, but you won’t experience the maximum speed of your internet. The 5GHz band, on the other hand, is faster and is the closest you’ll get to your claimed speeds. The problem is that it has a shorter range, so the farther you are from the router, the more problems you may have when connecting to it.
Here’s the gist in a nutshell: 2.4 GHz for distance, 5 GHz for speed. So, if your PS5 is in close proximity to your router, it only makes sense to use the 5GHz band for maximum speeds for everything from game downloads to online gaming.
If your router splits its bands into separate connections (e.g. Jake’s 2.4 network versus Jake’s 5.0 network) and you’re connecting to the 5GHz option, you might be fine. However, if your router only offers one network to connect to, you’ll need to make sure the PS5 connects to your 5GHz band. Because that’s where the lag problem lies.
How to force your PS5 to use the faster 5GHz Wi-Fi band
As it turns out, Sony doesn’t connect your PS5 to your 5GHz band by default. Instead, it uses auto setup to connect to whichever band it thinks the PS5 should connect to. As a relatively new PS5 owner, I didn’t know this until I came across this Reddit thread . I went to see what band my PS5 was using and don’t you know: 2.4GHz.
Sony is likely doing this to limit the problems for users who keep their PlayStations too far from the router. If the PS5 defaulted to 5GHz, but the range between the console and the router was too large, internet stability would suffer. By default at 2.4GHz, Sony makes it easy to connect to your Wi-Fi wherever you are, but at the cost of speed.
Sony doesn’t make it obvious how to get your PS5 to connect to the 5GHz band, but it’s easy enough. Go to Settings, then go to Network > Settings > Set Up Internet Connection . Hover your mouse over your current network, then click the Options button and choose Advanced Settings > Wi-Fi Frequency Bands . Switch the setting from “Automatic” to “5GHz” and you’re done.
Wi-Fi will never be as fast as Ethernet
While the 5GHz band will provide the best possible speed on your Wi-Fi network, it’s still Wi-Fi. Wireless Internet will never offer the most reliable speeds or performance, which is why Ethernet is still king. If you want to really boost your PS5’s home internet speed, connect it directly to your router with an Ethernet cable.