Wireless Access

I have a customer who have done a 1-to-1 swap from MSM422 APs to IAP-205, and are now complaining that they lack radio coverage in some areas where they used to have coverage.

I assume they are talking about 2.4Ghz coverage as we talking about the edge of the coverage of both systems.

My question is: Did the MSM422 actually have better internal antennas than the IAP-205, so they can't really expect the same coverage?

Or, is the IAP just by default reducing its TX power to better optimize for many "weak clients" that can't hear each other?

I don't know what TX power level the old MSM422 was running at, but the new IAP's are default configured and have selected 19 dB on 2.4Ghz and 21 dB on 5Ghz.

If the IAP-205 actually do have physically worse antennas than the MSM422, are there other Aruba APs that would better match the performace of the MSM422 from a pure antenna gain perspective? Any comparation guide available that compare the different APs from this perspective?

We do not have enough information to understand what the problem is.

We do not know what the original transmit power on the MSM radios were.

We also do not know what type of deployment this is and how high the access points are mounted.

We also do not know what type of clients are affected and we do not have a good apples-to-apples test or site survey to determine if there are performance or coverage holes.

If this is your customer, these are the questions you should be asking.

Sorry, I wasn't really looking for a solution to this exact problem, as I fully understand there are a lot questions to be answered to be able to suggest the best way of resolving the issue. That's exactly how I will tackle this with my customer.

What I was looking for was a generic answer to how the actual physical characteristics differs between these platforms.

If I rephrase my question:

If I were to install a single AP in the middle of an open office, with no other radio sources interferring and just tested the radio coverage with a single client (ignoring hidden node problems etc). Would I see better or worse coverage with an IAP-205 or a MSM422? And would I see a difference in coverage between the diffrent IAP models?