Different in Aruba AP's receiver sensitivity compare to competitor

[piyaphol@hpe.com]

My customer has a serious question and doubt in Aruba AP's receiver sensitivity comparing to our competitor. They already understand the benefit of Client-Match. But Receiver sensitivity will be another criteria to deploy AP to coverage large of user. 

My customer is Mobile Service Operator which looking AP to do WIFI-Offloading. They install AP around 40,000+ AP per year in public area. So the receiver sensitivity is their big issue.

Comparing between AP215 and Cisco 2700, example.

     on 802.11ac-40MHZ, MCS9,  our sensitivity is -61 dB, Competitor is - 69 dB.  We have 8 dB gap

     on 802.11n-5Ghz-40MHz MCS7, our sensitivity is -69 dB, Competitor is -75 dB. we have 6 dB gap

So how should i response to my customer about this parameter which is write on our Datasheet?

Does our datasheet is wrong ? or it provides too few information due to they grouping MCS7,15,23?

     on 802.11n-5Ghz-40MHz MCS23, our sensitivity is -69 dB, Competitor is -71 dB. we are a litte bit improve ?

What is the result in the real environment ?  How much it affect on coverage? 6 dB mean 4 times of power drop?

Please kindly help me to figure out this. Thank you in advance

[Ejohnson · Accepted solution]

Aruba is per chain, Cisco is aggregate

Aruba

So for rx -90 dBm per chain becomes -94.8 dBm aggregate on AP-215

For tx 18 dBm per chain become 22.8dBm aggregate on AP-215

Cisco is 4 chains so to get back to per chain

Rx

-96 dBm aggregate becomes -90 dBm per chain

Tx

23 dBm aggregate becomes 17 dBm per chain

Also, we knowingly take some hit on 2.4 rx because of the filtering in place to protect against co location with DAS systems. Cisco does not do that.

[piyaphol@hpe.com]

Hi E Johnson,

Could you please provide me how to calculate and compare between "per chain" and "Aggregate" ?

Thank you in advance.

[Ejohnson · Accepted solution]

The difference between per chain and aggregate is

10*log(#antennas)

for

Antennas     Per chain to Aggregate

2                        3 dB

3                      4.8 dB

4                      6.0 dB

....

[piyaphol@hpe.com]

Hi E Johnson,

Wow, and thank you very much for kind support.

[Ejohnson]

http://www.arubanetworks.com/video.php?v=launch/BitBusters_EP2_2.mp4&w=960&h=540

http://www.arubanetworks.com/v/?v=/launch/Bitbusters_EP3.mp4&width=960&height=540&t=BitBusters%203:%20The%2011ac%20Meltdown

[jhoward]

Here are just a couple charts showing competitive performance between the AP-215 and Cisco 2702, taken indoors in an office environment at different distances. 

There is no realized performance gain, and in fact, the AP-215 outperforms the 2702 out to 120ft non-line-of-sight. As clients get closer, the performance gap is even widened. 

[Ejohnson]

These are also relevant:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO0mzXfOA8Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_X8X5jCgRg

[lek.surachai@gmail.com]

E Johnson,

Are there any document, either from Cisco or Aruba, show that cisco is per aggregate and Aruba is per chain?

Thank You

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piyaphol@hpe.com wrote:

My customer has a serious question and doubt in Aruba AP's receiver sensitivity comparing to our competitor. They already understand the benefit of Client-Match. But Receiver sensitivity will be another criteria to deploy AP to coverage large of user. 

My customer is Mobile Service Operator which looking AP to do WIFI-Offloading. They install AP around 40,000+ AP per year in public area. So the receiver sensitivity is their big issue.

Comparing between AP215 and Cisco 2700, example.

     on 802.11ac-40MHZ, MCS9,  our sensitivity is -61 dB, Competitor is - 69 dB.  We have 8 dB gap

     on 802.11n-5Ghz-40MHz MCS7, our sensitivity is -69 dB, Competitor is -75 dB. we have 6 dB gap

So how should i response to my customer about this parameter which is write on our Datasheet?

Does our datasheet is wrong ? or it provides too few information due to they grouping MCS7,15,23?

     on 802.11n-5Ghz-40MHz MCS23, our sensitivity is -69 dB, Competitor is -71 dB. we are a litte bit improve ?

What is the result in the real environment ?  How much it affect on coverage? 6 dB mean 4 times of power drop?

Please kindly help me to figure out this. Thank you in advance

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