Environment : This article applies to all the IAPs running a minimum version of 6.2.1.0-3.3.0.0
The amount of data that can be transmitted also depends on the width of the channel used in data transmission. By bonding or combining two or more channels together, more bandwidth is available for data transmission. In 2.4 and 5 GHz frequency band, each channel is approximately 20 MHz wide. In 802.11n, two adjacent channels, each of 20 MHz are bonded to get a total bandwidth of 40 MHz. This provides increased channel width to transmit more data.
But the trade off of using channel bonding is that fewer channels remain for other devices. In traditional 2.4 GHz WI-Fi deployments where there are only three non-overlapping 20MHz channels, channel bonding has been found to be harmful However, the channel bonding has more relevance in 5 GHz frequency range where we have as many as 23 adjacent non-overlapping channels currently available.
By Default channel bonding is enabled in 5 GHz Band. If the AP density is low, we can enable it in the 2.4GHz band too and we can disable channel bonding altogether when we have legacy clients in the network that doesn’t supports Channel bonding
Configuring Wide Channel Bands on an IAP
In the Instant UI
1. Click the RF link at the top right corner of the Instant main window.
2. Click Show advanced options. The ARM tab details are displayed.
3. Navigate to Wide channel bands and choose between None, All, 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz
In the CLI
To configure ARM features:
(Instant Access Point)(config)# arm
(Instant Access Point)(ARM)# wide-bands {<5GHz>|<2GHz>|<All>|<None>}
(Instant Access Point)(ARM)# end
(Instant Access Point)# commit apply
To view ARM configuration:
(Instant Access Point)# Show arm config
Wide Channel Bands: 5 GHz