We have 2 Unleashed R600s in our office setup with the following details:
We haven't changed any of the default settings on the APs and hoping anyone had any suggestions on how to optimize them for the congested area we're in.
Thanks!
- Mounted on either end of the office, approx. 75ft apart
- Just above a drop ceiling so they're out of sight
- Hardwired to our main switch using PoE (Cisco managed)
- Office is on the 5th floor with 1 other tenant
- Building is in a very congested wireless area (~45 - 50 other networks discoverable, 20 - 25 that have strong signals.
- They're not using their own DHCP server, our main firewall handles that (SonicWall)
- Setup to use an external DNS server (Google's at the moment)
- 15-25 people in the office on a daily basis, mostly all using MacBook Airs or MacBook Pros
We haven't changed any of the default settings on the APs and hoping anyone had any suggestions on how to optimize them for the congested area we're in.
Thanks!
Posted 4 years ago
John D, AlphaDog
If you’re in a very congested area, I’d try to use as little 2.4GHz as possible.
When you say as little, do you mean deactivating channels or turning down the percentage of load balancing onto 2.4. Or both?
Thanks!
Thanks!
My guess would be literally don't use it unless you have too. If all your clients support 5Ghz, disable the 2.4 radios or at least only broadcast your corp network SSID's on 5Ghz. You could still broadcast any guest networks on 2.4 for devices that don't support 5Ghz but if you can, move everyone to 5Ghz.
You'll likely lose some range compared to 2.4 so it may not be practical, the problem may also be that those 3-5 people are on the edge of 5Ghz range and are switching between 5 and 2.4 and having good speed on 2.4 but bad speed on 5. Ideally you need to determine what happens when one of these users walks out of their office to improve their performance (do they roam from 5Ghz to 2.4, or vice versa?)
You'll likely lose some range compared to 2.4 so it may not be practical, the problem may also be that those 3-5 people are on the edge of 5Ghz range and are switching between 5 and 2.4 and having good speed on 2.4 but bad speed on 5. Ideally you need to determine what happens when one of these users walks out of their office to improve their performance (do they roam from 5Ghz to 2.4, or vice versa?)
With Unleashed, your only real option is to turn down the load balancing percentage.
Bill Burns, AlphaDog
Scott:
I would suggest having an additional SSID that's only present on your 5Ghz radios.
In my institution, I name that SSID "Fast".
That way, clients have the option of connecting to the 5Ggig SSID and knowing that they're not roaming onto a 2.4Ghz radio.
Also (in an environment with only 2 APs) it may be helpful create a separate SSID for each radio of each AP. That way (if an individual client is having speed issues) it will be possible to force the client to a particular AP/radio to prevent roaming and test performance on that one radio.
I'm able to do this w/ my controller.
I don't use "unleased".
Hopefully I'm not recommending you do do something that's not possible.
I would suggest having an additional SSID that's only present on your 5Ghz radios.
In my institution, I name that SSID "Fast".
That way, clients have the option of connecting to the 5Ggig SSID and knowing that they're not roaming onto a 2.4Ghz radio.
Also (in an environment with only 2 APs) it may be helpful create a separate SSID for each radio of each AP. That way (if an individual client is having speed issues) it will be possible to force the client to a particular AP/radio to prevent roaming and test performance on that one radio.
I'm able to do this w/ my controller.
I don't use "unleased".
Hopefully I'm not recommending you do do something that's not possible.
John D, AlphaDog
You can't do that with Unleashed currently. Though I think you can turn off 2.4GHz altogether.
There are no WLAN or AP groups on unleashed so you cant turn off the 2.4GHz radio - unsure about global radio configs though:
http://docs.ruckuswireless.com/unleashed/200.1.9.12/#c-RadioBGN.html
You can however use the percentage value on Band Balacing to push all capable client to the 5GHz radio:
http://docs.ruckuswireless.com/unleashed/200.1.9.12/#c-BandBalancing.html
Just set the value to 0%
http://docs.ruckuswireless.com/unleashed/200.1.9.12/#c-RadioBGN.html
You can however use the percentage value on Band Balacing to push all capable client to the 5GHz radio:
http://docs.ruckuswireless.com/unleashed/200.1.9.12/#c-BandBalancing.html
Just set the value to 0%
(Edited)
