Wireless Access

Hi,

One of my clients wants to put AP 305 into the bus connected to a small switch which will be connected to Rogers (ISP) Rocket hub router which is providing 100 Mbps of speed. Currently, they are testing with 205 and want to upgrade to 305. They are aware of AP 275 as well because they have external AP connected to branches. But it is hard to hang AP outside the bus so they are planning to keep small infrastructure for a small bus. Their end goal is to provide wireless services to the customers standing or sitting outside the library which is being used as a Food Bank in this COVID-19 situation. They want to find out out of AP 205 and AP305 which one is best and how much coverage area it can cover so they can put both or only one.

The coverage area of the 205 and 305 is quite similar (see image below from VisualRF). Note that the 205 is no longer supported in the latest major release of Aruba Instant, so I would go for the 305 regardless (or 304 with external antenna). The 305 has a marginal larger coverage, but that would not justify the choice for one or the other in my opinion.

Most cars have a lot of steel that blocks the signal if the AP is mounted inside and you need coverage outside. What may work as well (assuming an outdoor AP is really a no-go) is to use an AP-304 and for example the AP-ANT-35A Dual Band 90x90deg and glue the panel inside to the window. Make sure there is no heat-protection foil in the window as that will block the signal even further.

You probably should just try (if you have multiple vans) to see what works best.

Do you know the basic range or say coverage of IAP 205 and IAP 305? e.g like 50meter 100meter like that

How simple this question may look, how hard it is to answer. There are so many dependencies like the client being used, the required signal strength, required data speeds (if a client can connect with 1Mbps, does that count as in range?), the power levels configured (in enterprise you typically want to avoid the maximum power), the environment (in an open area the signal can travel much further than if there are objects that block or absorb the signal). From the two numbers you give, I think 100m is on the high side unless you have absolute free line-of-sight between the client and the AP, which also may mean that if the person turns around and a body is in between the signal is too weak.

The generic issue is that signal degrades by the distance from the AP gradually, and it is really hard to have a universal hard number on coverage.

Most scenarios are around capacity, where you prefer the range rather smaller than larger, or you require proper speeds as in practice if clients are connected at 20Mbps or less, the performance is poor anyway you will need to have a quite strong signal. If you have a mobile low bandwidth backhaul of few Mbps and a single AP, that makes a lot of differences as you can put the AP to maximum power and performance of the wireless is probably not the most relevant parameter.

In office environments I see APs spaced 15m apart or even closer, which means that you are at max 7-8m from the AP. So that is not the coverage range, but an indication of range to have good performance.