Controller Based WLANs

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APs, Controllers, VIA

Issues with wireless clients connecting to Aruba APs on 5GHz 

Jul 11, 2014 12:06 PM

Are there any compatibility issues between iphones/Androids or Mac OS clients and Aruba APs on 5GHz band?

 

What sort of behaviours do you tend to see with devices not probing UNII2/2e, 165 channels on 5GHz?

 

Environment Information :

 

Any Aruba AP that supports 802.11abg bands - AP10x, AP13x, AP22x, AP9x, RAP5WN etc.
Any Mobility Controller
Any Aruba OS based on APs/Controllers

 

Symptoms : More wireless clients are seen connecting to 5GHz band when we disable DFS Channels

 

Cause : Many wireless devices do not actively probe any DFS Channels but they do listen for beacons.  Whereas the same devices do active probing on UNII1 and UNII3 bands which makes them detect the AP faster than on UNII2.

 

Resolution : Based on the requirement,  we may either choose to disable DFS Channels for the country in use from the valid 802.11a channel pairs in the AP regulatory domain profile.

 

Answer :

Many wireless devices do not actively probe any DFS Channels but they do listen for beacons.  Whereas the same devices do active probing on UNII1 and UNII3 bands which makes them detect the AP faster than on UNII2.  Following are some examples:
 
Most Android clients don't actively probe DFS Channels unless they first hear beacons on the channel they're interested in based on what channels the client supports.
We have also seen iPhones not actively probing for DFS Channels.
Samsung GS4 doesn't support UNII3.
Cisco 792x phones don't support Channel 165.
Mac OS depends on the country.  Mac OS clients pick up the country code from what it hears from the APs.  

Some support documentation based on research for external links on the above topics are:

Androids and Samsung support for DFS Channels and UNII3 respectively: 
https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=22474
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/1lid5l/wifi_issues_nexus_4_43/


iPhones not actively probing for DFS Channels:
http://blogs.aerohive.com/blog/the-network-revolution/apple-iphone-5-wi-fi-specs
https://discussions.apple.com/message/10322929#10322929


Cisco 7925 -- Not supporting  channel165
PAGE 64 - "Ensure that channel 165 is not enabled in the DCA list as the Cisco Unified Wireless IP Phone 7925G, 7925G-EX, and 7926G do not support this channel."
 
MAC OS picks up the country code from what it hears: https://discussions.apple.com/message/18231954#18231954\
 
Ascom - Supporting channel 165
PAGE 3 - 
"USA/Canada:
b/g: 2.4–2.4835 GHz (Ch 1–11) and
a: 5.15–5.35 GHz (Ch 36–64), 5.47–5.85 GHz (Ch 100–165)"
 

 

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