Hi experts,
I have heard and read many times (and I also agree) that the AP's transmit power shouldn't be so high, since clients such as tablets and phones have little transmit power (according to some Cisco paper around 10 dBm). So the APs transmit power should be equal or less of the least powerful client for a proper design.
In today's Ekahau webinar, they browsed the web http://clients.mikealbano.com/ where you can find the maximum transmit power of many vendor devices. Take two examples: if you filter for Samsung they are around 18 dBm, if you filter for iPhone they are around 21 dBm.
Taking this into account, it makes sense on one hand to configure the APs to transmit at around 20 dBm. But on the other hand it sounds too much transmit power according to me.
APs' high transmit power has many disadvantages (high CCI, sticky clients, bad roaming and so on). One disadvantage is to have the client not beeing able to reach the AP and it has been discussed many times, but it was by thinking that phones and tablets can transmit at 15 dBm at most, but it seems it is not according to the previous web and others.
So, only taking into account this last disadvantage about the balance of APs and clients transmit power, does it make sense to design the WLAN by having the APs transmitting at around 20 dBm?
Regards,
Julián