Turns out it won't connect to the 5GHz wifi on my home router either, only the 2.4GHz.

(edit: I can get it to connect if I lower the channel on my home router, but there is too much channel interference and the home router performance degrades massively).

Phone 5GHz hotspot is on channel 149 (155), home router 5GHz is on channel 100. The 5GHz settings in the TPLink router only list channels 36,40,44,48 as options.

I just checked the firmware version and it appears to be the latest available on the TPLink download site 0.9.1 0.3 v0089.0 Build 191018 Rel.34369n(4555)

It would seem TPLink are selling a product that isn't suited to the regional radio frequency regulations in Australia. ie it doesn't support the 5GHz channels used here.

I can live with 2.4GHz for the occasional hotspot use so it's not worth the hassle of returning it, but it's disappointing that the product falls short of the performance available from 5GHz wifi.

NB

Speedtest with laptop connected to TPLink 2.4GHz wifi (which is then connected to home router via 2.4GHz) =  21Mbps down/21 Mbps up.

Speedtest with laptop connected direct to home router using 5GHz wifi = 200Mbps down/40Mbps up.

@TimH767 

Sorry, apparently I was posting in the wrong thread.

The correct one was " TL-WR902AC won't connect to Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G wifi hotspot 5GHz ".

https://community.tp-link.com/en/home/forum/topic/516446?replyId=1031872

Michael