Wireless Access

Hi,

We have ubiquitous wireless in several buildings, each building having all AP-65s. Quantities range from 50-75 APs per builing. The res hall has suites and there is one AP-65 mounted inside the service closet in each suite. There have been no complaints of coverage in either frequency. One of our summer plans is to essentially do a "one for one" swap of AP-65s with AP-135s using the same exact location in each instance. Mount brackets, power concerns, and cable quality are taken into account.

My question is, all things being equal, will the RF properties of an AP-135 fit snugly in the footprint of an AP-65? Will we likely incur  coverage holes? Oversaturation? Or can ARM (mode aware disabled, of course) handle any adjustments?

This project is being done without a budget for moving cable home runs (AP locations) and there doesn't appear to be a lot of time for pre and post testing.

Anyone done a whole building AP-65 -> AP-135 swap? Any advice would be appreciated!

-Mike

Mike,

Was the original design done with 5G in mind? You may see gaps in 5G coverage if the AP-65s were installed with a 2.4G RF plan.

My understanding is that we originally surveyed for 5GHz coverage years ago when we installed the AP-65s. Is the power/gain weaker on the Ap-135s? I confess that I have not compared the radio specs..

-Mike

The major difference you will see with the 135 would be the coverage pattern. The 135's are omni downtilt optimized for ceiling deployments parallel to the floor. Gain/power shouldn't change. ARM will regulate it within FCC requirements and based on surrounding APs.

I would definitely suggest doing a quick survey of a small part of the building with two IAP-135s placed near the existing 65s.

Thanks for the info Tim.

I was *just* informed (monents ago) by management that we may be considering swapping the AP-65s with AP-125s, not AP-135s.

The reason for the change is that we apparently have hundreds of AP-125s on hand. Also, movng the AP-65s from their current wall mount location to the preferred ceiling mount location for an AP-135 would involve more cost and a different staff group. There are ~250 APs involved in the first four proposed buildings.

Any different issues seen with doing an AP-65 -> AP-125 swap ?

-Mike

The 125 gives you antenna orientation options. If you are wall mounting them, then the antennas should be perpendicular to the floor (similar to the AP-65). You should be fine with swapping 1:1 as the 125 is a similar design to the 65.

I would definitely "soft mount" two or three in an area and do a quick test.

Tim

Thank you. And yes, a soft mount test in a controlled is excellent advice!

-Mike