Controllerless Networks

Design question. I have 5 to 6 IAPs in a location. I suspect 2.4 co-channel interference is causing issues or will cause issues. Is it better to stagger the broadcasting of the 2.4 radio accross every other IAP or better to turn down the TX power rating? 

 

If assigning a lower TX setting, does that take the IAP out of ARM? 

 

If staggering is a better solution, how can i disable the 2.4 radio on certain IAPs? Do I need to convert the 2.4 radio into a monitor or spectrum monitor or will that still cause interferrence? 

Make the 2.4 power minimum and maximum transmit power 9. You can monitor how you are doing by looking at the RF utilization.

Is staggering 2.4 not recommended? Why set TX to 9? 

If you think you have congestion issues based on too much coverage, observing the RF utilization in the middle of the night is the way to find out if that is the case.  If you lower the tx power on 2.4ghz to 9 and you don't have the issue, you don't have to stagger 2.4ghz.  Staggering 2.4ghz is an administrative penalty due to having to maintain which APs need to have 2.4 ghz on or not.  In small, static installations, this probably is not a problem.  In larger installations or ones that change more frequently, this creates a great deal of administrative work.  It is better to change the transmit power to 9 and find out if (1) utilization is reduced considerably and (2) if most dual band clients end up moving to 5ghz.  If reducing power solves your problem you will not need to turn off APs and keep track of which APs you would need to turn off the radios of.

You make a good point. Thxs 

Opps I posted this to the wrong thread. here goes: 

Colin, one last question on this. In visualRF, predicitve, I can show the heatmaps for 5GHz  and of course 2.4 is about 3x the coverage distance. would you say that by lowering the 2.4 TX to 9 that would give about the same coverage disatance as 5GHZ? 

 Also, how would you go about monitoring the 2.4 usage? 

 

I guess I could try to simulate that in VRF but wanted your input? Thxs 

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@rockbird wrote:

Opps I posted this to the wrong thread. here goes: 

Colin, one last question on this. In visualRF, predicitve, I can show the heatmaps for 5GHz  and of course 2.4 is about 3x the coverage distance. would you say that by lowering the 2.4 TX to 9 that would give about the same coverage disatance as 5GHZ? 

 Also, how would you go about monitoring the 2.4 usage? 

 

I guess I could try to simulate that in VRF but wanted your input? Thxs 

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Lowering the 2.4ghz to 9 has nothing to do with VisualRF.  I was answering your question about too much coverage.  You measure too much coverage based on RF utilization.  I cannot say that lowering 2.4ghz to 9 would provide the same coverage at 5ghz because there are quite a few variables at play.  Also, at a high density we are not talking about coverage, we have enough coverage; we are talking about reducing contention because of too much coverage.

 

You would monitor 2.4ghz usage with channel utilization.

 

Nothing I discussed could be modeled in VisualRF.