Higher Education

 

We have about 8 dorms with 6" CMU block with drywall and paint and it's been very difficult to provide wireless without placing an AP in each room like the Aruba doc recommends .

 

vfabian@brandeis.edu - Brandeis Universit_2013-07-01_08-45-02.png" src="https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/HPE/MigratedInlineFiles/03f36732c913404695dee632abdfbcb4_9cfb876fbe354672b926fa40b4da23cf" title="Fwd_ App Note for Next Gen Res Halls - vfabian@brandeis.edu - Brandeis Universit_2013-07-01_08-45-02.png">

 

Would like to know how some of you have dealt with this type of building structures ?

We did a "test" in which we deployed APs in every other room, but staggered them across the hall and by floor.  Think of a 3-D checker board.  Coverage isn't 'perfect' but there is enough bleed through that it works in all rooms without having to roll out 200 APs in a single residence hall.

 

Thanks for the feedback

---

@mcw015 wrote:

We did a "test" in which we deployed APs in every other room, but staggered them across the hall and by floor.  Think of a 3-D checker board.  Coverage isn't 'perfect' but there is enough bleed through that it works in all rooms without having to roll out 200 APs in a single residence hall.

---

 

What APs are you using ?

We used AP-105s.  We didn't modify the radio power or anyhing else.  We simply put them in and let them go.  We basically followed Drexel University's model.  If you haven't seen it, the webinar is linked below.  

 

http://www.arubanetworks.com/technology/webinars/on-demand-webinars#webinar-education|hc4t0691

 

We haven't put it out as a full deployment, only as a "beta" test to validate what Drexel saw.  We saw similar results.  The cost associated with doing a microcell architecture is just too high for us at present.

 

Thanks

Is anyone here using the AP-93H in their dorms? If so, what has your experience been?

We've deployed 93H's in two dorm buildings.    The things I like - designed for in-room installation - thats a plus if you haven't yet convinced the installers that a hallway installation won't work (especially with cinderblock construction).

 

And they can be installed very quickly.

They appear robust - haven't had one go down yet for being crushed/spilled on - I think I only had to RMA one - and that was shortly after install (we have 109 installed)

 

The only con - is that they are single radio.... cost was a concern so they didn't get installed dense enough to provide both 2.4 and 5ghz coverage - so unfortuneately these dorms are 2.4Ghz only at the moment.

we are using the 93h's as well. we are also deployed in every other room type deployement. solved our wireless issues from an HP hall install environment.

We replaced all our hallway APs with AP105s then we put AP93H in some rooms to augment the 5GHz coverage. We then turned on band steering. We are hopeful as more clients are 5GHz capable we will see more usage on them. Currently we see about 15-20% of our clients in the residence halls using the 5GHz channels. 

Why are you putting APs in the hallways? Shouldn't they be in the rooms where the students are? In hallways, APs tend to hear each other very well and decrease their power.

Those were our existing locations. We get fairly decent 2.4GHz coverage of the building with those locations. We needed to move to N and using the 105 in our existing locations was the quickest solution. We are doing best effort with 2.4GHz and expect that good clients will use the 5GHz or there is always the datajack in the room. :smileywink:

We had original installations back in 2008 with APs in the hallway and are now moving them into the rooms.  We have completed 1 building with success and are in the process of another.  We found that in some of the buildings the signal will penetrate better through the floors and ceiling than the walls.  So we have some buildings where an AP 105/125 will cover 5 rooms - (room it is in - 2 adjacent rooms and above and below)  and other buildings where it only covers 3 rooms.   Coverage is based on 5GHz at -65db

 

Chris Hart

Northwestern University

We're about ready to drop 90 AP-105s in our resnet, with a much lower density. A test deployment of three in a building (staggered across three floors) worked really well for them. 

 

Our resnet throws a lot of interference and chatter on the 2.4ghz bands, so they are really excited to get the 5 ghz APs and also excited to start testing the new ClientMatch features in 6.3.

 

(These are replacing Linksys WAP-54g DD-WRT units that had been previously deployed by the resnet group.)