Wireless Access

Hello All,

I tried searching but wasn't able to find anything definitive.

We are currently planning an overhaul of our outdoor WiFi deployment. (~35 APs or so). They are all set up as mesh portals/mesh points currently,

My question is: for an outdoor AP that is only going to be providing coverage (no PtP), what is the best way to provision it? As a mesh portal, or as a regular Campus AP, with the outdoor setting (in an AP group with appropriate RF settings)?

Our use case is we have a lot of APs on the outside of buildings that simply provide coverage for green space/sitting areas where students may be working outside.

Any help is appreciated

Mesh portals and points are still campus APs.  Portals have a wired connection to the infrastructure and Points are expect to connect back via a wireless uplink.

I reread your post...is there a technological challenge or user experience issue that needs to be solved?

If you are just plugging in an CAP that is outside, you only need to provision it as mesh if (1) It is providing mesh services to another AP, or (2)  it needs to connect to another AP as mesh.  Otherwise, it just needs to be a Campus AP.

If you are just plugging in an CAP that is outside, you only need to provision it as mesh if (1) It is providing mesh services to another AP, or (2)  it needs to connect to another AP as mesh.  Otherwise, it just needs to be a Campus AP.

That's really what I was looking for. There aren't any issues currently, but I just wanted to make sure that the new APs get setup according to best practices.

Just running them as CAPs would be fine.  Provisioning them as mesh would add management overhead and decrease performance due to the presence of a mesh BSS.