Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs
On 08/13/2015 05:15 PM, Chuck Enfield wrote: I suspect you're that ARM can be made to work, but the question is how to do it. Aruba doesn't tell you what the various indices should be, they just say that they vary with deployment density. Ask the question on Airheads and you get: 95% of the time you do not have to change those parameters. An explanation of ARM parameters is here: and then a link to the users' guide ARM section. That from an Aruba employee. Also, ARM won’t adjust the Tx power down to 0 dBm, which I find is often the right 2.4 Tx power for really dense deployments, such as classroom buildings where there's an AP in almost every room. 0 dBm must be set in the radio profile. Before Client Match I considered abandoning ARM entirely. Client Match and Mode Aware definitely make it worth keeping though. If the radio needs to be that low, you may as well turn it off and re-use it for monitoring, which is what the Mode Aware option is in Aruba. Then the remaining 2.4 radios around that AP can power up. At this point we only treat 2.4 GHz band as best effort access only. So it ends up forming large cells with a few APs, so most clients that are duel band will prefer 5 GHz without nudging them. In Aruba's case the controller calculates neighbor tables and prunes the APs with the highest managed neighbor count as part of the AP-Air Monitor algorithm. The coverage index setting comes into play there as well, defaults will end up trying to turn off almost all your radios in both bands in a high density deployment. It's really set for 60ft+ separation without obstructions out of the box, so for high density profiles I usually cut the min/ideal in half for 30 ft drop ceiling deployments. This ends up with min Tx 2.4 GHz radios, but all still on normally. That lets them still power up to fill holes for a down AP. However, as folks have said - it's always the details. All the vendors ship with defaults that really are tuned to 1 floor of cube farms as far as I can tell. It would be nice if they had some out of the box pre-sets for different deployment options. In my case with Aruba it's been a few years of dialing things in after reading all the available vendor documentation as well as picking the brain of various consultants that had been in for different parts of deployments to get real world field experience over what random T1 TAC might tell you. The first thing I usually do on a clean controller is set up some high-density and low-density profiles with corresponding settings. Then do some iterative tweaking as needed based on real deployment and RF environment and any client implementation issues (odd device requirements, etc). -- -James ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
RE: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs
Sorry, but I have to point out that 0 dBm is not low. It's only 15 dB less than typical Tx power, but it's 60 to 65 dB higher than typical cell boundaries. -Original Message- From: James Michael Keller [mailto:jmkel...@houseofzen.org] Sent: Friday, August 14, 2015 10:15 AM To: Chuck Enfield chu...@psu.edu; WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs On 08/13/2015 05:15 PM, Chuck Enfield wrote: I suspect you're that ARM can be made to work, but the question is how to do it. Aruba doesn't tell you what the various indices should be, they just say that they vary with deployment density. Ask the question on Airheads and you get: 95% of the time you do not have to change those parameters. An explanation of ARM parameters is here: and then a link to the users' guide ARM section. That from an Aruba employee. Also, ARM won’t adjust the Tx power down to 0 dBm, which I find is often the right 2.4 Tx power for really dense deployments, such as classroom buildings where there's an AP in almost every room. 0 dBm must be set in the radio profile. Before Client Match I considered abandoning ARM entirely. Client Match and Mode Aware definitely make it worth keeping though. If the radio needs to be that low, you may as well turn it off and re-use it for monitoring, which is what the Mode Aware option is in Aruba. Then the remaining 2.4 radios around that AP can power up. At this point we only treat 2.4 GHz band as best effort access only. So it ends up forming large cells with a few APs, so most clients that are duel band will prefer 5 GHz without nudging them. In Aruba's case the controller calculates neighbor tables and prunes the APs with the highest managed neighbor count as part of the AP-Air Monitor algorithm. The coverage index setting comes into play there as well, defaults will end up trying to turn off almost all your radios in both bands in a high density deployment. It's really set for 60ft+ separation without obstructions out of the box, so for high density profiles I usually cut the min/ideal in half for 30 ft drop ceiling deployments. This ends up with min Tx 2.4 GHz radios, but all still on normally. That lets them still power up to fill holes for a down AP. However, as folks have said - it's always the details. All the vendors ship with defaults that really are tuned to 1 floor of cube farms as far as I can tell. It would be nice if they had some out of the box pre-sets for different deployment options. In my case with Aruba it's been a few years of dialing things in after reading all the available vendor documentation as well as picking the brain of various consultants that had been in for different parts of deployments to get real world field experience over what random T1 TAC might tell you. The first thing I usually do on a clean controller is set up some high-density and low-density profiles with corresponding settings. Then do some iterative tweaking as needed based on real deployment and RF environment and any client implementation issues (odd device requirements, etc). -- -James ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs
On 08/13/2015 05:28 PM, Frank Sweetser wrote: I've heard good things about this specific Aruba solution, which at least aims to give a set of environment specific tuning settings: https://ase.arubanetworks.com/solutions/id/75 (I believe an Aruba support login is required to view) Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. Lord, I'm out of a job :) I'll have to compare some of my templates against what it generates and do some A/B testing -- -James ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs
This is just really surprising to me that you have to do this with Aruba (adjust Tx manually). On Cisco, the RRM and TPC are really well implemented, and in general when dealing with dense deployments in residential halls, the 2.4 radios are running at such low Tx power that a dual 2.4/5 client will never pick 2.4 over 5 unless: 1) It’s broken, 2) The client is in a fringe area and there isn’t another 5 Ghz radio to roam to, or 3) The AP placement is outside the client use area e.g. In hallway instead of in-room. Also, I note in your doc you say Try to avoid locating APs in the same locations on each floor of a multi-story building (aka, stacking).” With Cisco APs where the entire bottom of the AP is a metal plate, you’re actually better off stacking AP’s on adjacent floors, especially in cases where you want to utilize location services. Staggering AP’s across multi-floor can result in a client on say floor 2 being closer to an AP on floor 3, making location services unreliable. If the Ap’s are stacked, unless the floor is made of glass, a client on floor 2 should always associate with AP’s on the same floor. Jeff From: wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edumailto:wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu on behalf of Chuck Enfield Reply-To: Chuck Enfield Date: Wednesday, August 12, 2015 at 8:43 PM To: wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edumailto:wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs 2, Turn down power on 2.4 GHz so it is at least 3 dB weaker than 5 GHz throughout the coverage area. This is what makes the devices prefer 5 GHz. (It may go without saying given this recommendation, but we configure the AP with a fixed Tx power. RF management only chooses the channel. The benefits of optimizing the power settings of the two radios on an AP easily outweigh the benefits of the crappy power adjustment algorithms used by the AP manufacturers.) ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
RE: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs
Thanks for the link. I forgot all about that tool. FWIW, I entered the parameters for a few buildings we designed recently and I think the settings produced by the tool would be quite serviceable. If I didn't have time for a thorough survey I would be willing to go with these. That said, I think it still leaves some performance on the table. Some observations: -The resulting configs have fixed Tx power. -It uses ARM to set power, so the min Tx power is 3 dBm instead of 0. -It modifies the coverage indices, which answers my question in an earlier email regarding how to figure out an appropriate value. -It does not adjust Rx sensitivity -All configs had a 12 Mb/s minimum, basic, and beacon rate. In my opinion (and it's exactly that, an opinion), the configs are good (MUCH better than defaults,) but an experienced professional can do better. Chuck -Original Message- From: Frank Sweetser [mailto:f...@wpi.edu] Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2015 5:28 PM To: Chuck Enfield chu...@psu.edu; WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs I've heard good things about this specific Aruba solution, which at least aims to give a set of environment specific tuning settings: https://ase.arubanetworks.com/solutions/id/75 (I believe an Aruba support login is required to view) Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. On August 13, 2015 5:15:21 PM EDT, Chuck Enfield chu...@psu.edu wrote: I suspect you're that ARM can be made to work, but the question is how to do it. Aruba doesn't tell you what the various indices should be, they just say that they vary with deployment density. Ask the question on Airheads and you get: 95% of the time you do not have to change those parameters. An explanation of ARM parameters is here: and then a link to the users' guide ARM section. That from an Aruba employee. Also, ARM won’t adjust the Tx power down to 0 dBm, which I find is often the right 2.4 Tx power for really dense deployments, such as classroom buildings where there's an AP in almost every room. 0 dBm must be set in the radio profile. Before Client Match I considered abandoning ARM entirely. Client Match and Mode Aware definitely make it worth keeping though. -Original Message- From: James Michael Keller [mailto:jmkel...@houseofzen.org] Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2015 4:05 PM To: Chuck Enfield chu...@psu.edu; WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs On 08/13/2015 03:40 PM, Chuck Enfield wrote: Just to be clear, we don’t have to do these things to make wireless work. It makes it work better. But it is sometimes necessary to make wireless work acceptably in the most challenging environments. That said, left to defaults Aruba’s ARM also adjusts 2.4 GHz Tx power way down. So far down, in fact, that coverage gaps show up. It also tends to keep power higher on busy APs and lower on less busy ones. In some cases the power on the 2.4 radio will be the same as the power on the 5 GHz radio. These characteristics forces us to configure a range of acceptable power levels for ARM to choose from. Once you’re doing that, why not select the optimum power levels? While I’m no expert on Cisco wireless, I have assisted some departments with problems on their Cisco infrastructure. Based on that limited experience, I have far less confidence in RRM than you seem to. The main issue is the defaults for Aruba are for coverage networks, not high density (30-40 ft) or very high density (30 Ft or less). You need to adjust the coverage index min/ideal for high density deployments so ARM will power down to Min TX powers without shutting down the 2.4 GHz radios due to CCI (even with edge detection for the APs the default will still end up with only a few 2.4 GHz APs). If you set Tx Min/Max to a 6dBm range the APs can power to around double the cell size for coverage gaps if a radio is down. I also like to set the 5 GHz Tx Min/Max range at least 3dBm higher then 2.4 GHz because of the unattenuated propagation distance and better attenuated penetration. Which also helps duel band devices make better selections. However most devices have a fairly generous threshold on AP signal drop before they even try and probe for candidate APs to associate to. That's really where the controller based client stearing solutions come in to play with selective acks or the probes to get the client on the best AP regardless of what the client wants based on just Rx signal. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
RE: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs
Thanks. That could be what I was missing. The Cisco systems I get asked to assist with are usually neglected. It's quite likely I wasn't dealing with all the latest features. It's important to know the product in this business, so I'm at a major disadvantage on Cisco. (I humbly request that those of you who know me resist the temptation to comment on just how disadvantaged I am.) -Original Message- From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Jeffrey D. Sessler Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2015 5:07 PM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs On the Cisco, you also have a choice between TPCv1 coverage optimal mode or TPCv2 Interference Optimal. For dense deployments, you really want to be using TPCv2. Jeff On 8/13/15, 1:05 PM, The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv on behalf of James Michael Keller WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU on behalf of jmkel...@houseofzen.org wrote: On 08/13/2015 03:40 PM, Chuck Enfield wrote: Just to be clear, we don’t have to do these things to make wireless work. It makes it work better. But it is sometimes necessary to make wireless work acceptably in the most challenging environments. That said, left to defaults Aruba’s ARM also adjusts 2.4 GHz Tx power way down. So far down, in fact, that coverage gaps show up. It also tends to keep power higher on busy APs and lower on less busy ones. In some cases the power on the 2.4 radio will be the same as the power on the 5 GHz radio. These characteristics forces us to configure a range of acceptable power levels for ARM to choose from. Once you’re doing that, why not select the optimum power levels? While I’m no expert on Cisco wireless, I have assisted some departments with problems on their Cisco infrastructure. Based on that limited experience, I have far less confidence in RRM than you seem to. The main issue is the defaults for Aruba are for coverage networks, not high density (30-40 ft) or very high density (30 Ft or less). You need to adjust the coverage index min/ideal for high density deployments so ARM will power down to Min TX powers without shutting down the 2.4 GHz radios due to CCI (even with edge detection for the APs the default will still end up with only a few 2.4 GHz APs). If you set Tx Min/Max to a 6dBm range the APs can power to around double the cell size for coverage gaps if a radio is down. I also like to set the 5 GHz Tx Min/Max range at least 3dBm higher then 2.4 GHz because of the unattenuated propagation distance and better attenuated penetration. Which also helps duel band devices make better selections. However most devices have a fairly generous threshold on AP signal drop before they even try and probe for candidate APs to associate to. That's really where the controller based client stearing solutions come in to play with selective acks or the probes to get the client on the best AP regardless of what the client wants based on just Rx signal. -- -James ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
RE: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs
I suspect you're that ARM can be made to work, but the question is how to do it. Aruba doesn't tell you what the various indices should be, they just say that they vary with deployment density. Ask the question on Airheads and you get: 95% of the time you do not have to change those parameters. An explanation of ARM parameters is here: and then a link to the users' guide ARM section. That from an Aruba employee. Also, ARM won’t adjust the Tx power down to 0 dBm, which I find is often the right 2.4 Tx power for really dense deployments, such as classroom buildings where there's an AP in almost every room. 0 dBm must be set in the radio profile. Before Client Match I considered abandoning ARM entirely. Client Match and Mode Aware definitely make it worth keeping though. -Original Message- From: James Michael Keller [mailto:jmkel...@houseofzen.org] Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2015 4:05 PM To: Chuck Enfield chu...@psu.edu; WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs On 08/13/2015 03:40 PM, Chuck Enfield wrote: Just to be clear, we don’t have to do these things to make wireless work. It makes it work better. But it is sometimes necessary to make wireless work acceptably in the most challenging environments. That said, left to defaults Aruba’s ARM also adjusts 2.4 GHz Tx power way down. So far down, in fact, that coverage gaps show up. It also tends to keep power higher on busy APs and lower on less busy ones. In some cases the power on the 2.4 radio will be the same as the power on the 5 GHz radio. These characteristics forces us to configure a range of acceptable power levels for ARM to choose from. Once you’re doing that, why not select the optimum power levels? While I’m no expert on Cisco wireless, I have assisted some departments with problems on their Cisco infrastructure. Based on that limited experience, I have far less confidence in RRM than you seem to. The main issue is the defaults for Aruba are for coverage networks, not high density (30-40 ft) or very high density (30 Ft or less). You need to adjust the coverage index min/ideal for high density deployments so ARM will power down to Min TX powers without shutting down the 2.4 GHz radios due to CCI (even with edge detection for the APs the default will still end up with only a few 2.4 GHz APs). If you set Tx Min/Max to a 6dBm range the APs can power to around double the cell size for coverage gaps if a radio is down. I also like to set the 5 GHz Tx Min/Max range at least 3dBm higher then 2.4 GHz because of the unattenuated propagation distance and better attenuated penetration. Which also helps duel band devices make better selections. However most devices have a fairly generous threshold on AP signal drop before they even try and probe for candidate APs to associate to. That's really where the controller based client stearing solutions come in to play with selective acks or the probes to get the client on the best AP regardless of what the client wants based on just Rx signal. -- -James ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
RE: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs
Just to be clear, we don’t have to do these things to make wireless work. It makes it work better. But it is sometimes necessary to make wireless work acceptably in the most challenging environments. That said, left to defaults Aruba’s ARM also adjusts 2.4 GHz Tx power way down. So far down, in fact, that coverage gaps show up. It also tends to keep power higher on busy APs and lower on less busy ones. In some cases the power on the 2.4 radio will be the same as the power on the 5 GHz radio. These characteristics forces us to configure a range of acceptable power levels for ARM to choose from. Once you’re doing that, why not select the optimum power levels? While I’m no expert on Cisco wireless, I have assisted some departments with problems on their Cisco infrastructure. Based on that limited experience, I have far less confidence in RRM than you seem to. Finally, I agree about stacking in regard to location-based services. I find it frustrating that we have to choose between better network performance and better location services, but given our current business requirements I’m going to choose performance. As for the metal back plate, Aruba has that too. Unfortunately, it’s not that effective at radiating the energy downward. The Aruba AP’s have a ”backlobe” pointing straight up. While it’s -10 dB, it’s only a couple dB less than the off-axis upward radiation. Unless the floors are exceptionally lossy, we experience lower CCI by getting a wall or two as well as the floor between APs. From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Jeffrey D. Sessler Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2015 12:44 PM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs This is just really surprising to me that you have to do this with Aruba (adjust Tx manually). On Cisco, the RRM and TPC are really well implemented, and in general when dealing with dense deployments in residential halls, the 2.4 radios are running at such low Tx power that a dual 2.4/5 client will never pick 2.4 over 5 unless: 1) It’s broken, 2) The client is in a fringe area and there isn’t another 5 Ghz radio to roam to, or 3) The AP placement is outside the client use area e.g. In hallway instead of in-room. Also, I note in your doc you say Try to avoid locating APs in the same locations on each floor of a multi-story building (aka, stacking).” With Cisco APs where the entire bottom of the AP is a metal plate, you’re actually better off stacking AP’s on adjacent floors, especially in cases where you want to utilize location services. Staggering AP’s across multi-floor can result in a client on say floor 2 being closer to an AP on floor 3, making location services unreliable. If the Ap’s are stacked, unless the floor is made of glass, a client on floor 2 should always associate with AP’s on the same floor. Jeff From: wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu mailto:wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu on behalf of Chuck Enfield Reply-To: Chuck Enfield Date: Wednesday, August 12, 2015 at 8:43 PM To: wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu mailto:wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs 2, Turn down power on 2.4 GHz so it is at least 3 dB weaker than 5 GHz throughout the coverage area. This is what makes the devices prefer 5 GHz. (It may go without saying given this recommendation, but we configure the AP with a fixed Tx power. RF management only chooses the channel. The benefits of optimizing the power settings of the two radios on an AP easily outweigh the benefits of the crappy power adjustment algorithms used by the AP manufacturers.) ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs
On 08/13/2015 03:40 PM, Chuck Enfield wrote: Just to be clear, we don’t have to do these things to make wireless work. It makes it work better. But it is sometimes necessary to make wireless work acceptably in the most challenging environments. That said, left to defaults Aruba’s ARM also adjusts 2.4 GHz Tx power way down. So far down, in fact, that coverage gaps show up. It also tends to keep power higher on busy APs and lower on less busy ones. In some cases the power on the 2.4 radio will be the same as the power on the 5 GHz radio. These characteristics forces us to configure a range of acceptable power levels for ARM to choose from. Once you’re doing that, why not select the optimum power levels? While I’m no expert on Cisco wireless, I have assisted some departments with problems on their Cisco infrastructure. Based on that limited experience, I have far less confidence in RRM than you seem to. The main issue is the defaults for Aruba are for coverage networks, not high density (30-40 ft) or very high density (30 Ft or less). You need to adjust the coverage index min/ideal for high density deployments so ARM will power down to Min TX powers without shutting down the 2.4 GHz radios due to CCI (even with edge detection for the APs the default will still end up with only a few 2.4 GHz APs). If you set Tx Min/Max to a 6dBm range the APs can power to around double the cell size for coverage gaps if a radio is down. I also like to set the 5 GHz Tx Min/Max range at least 3dBm higher then 2.4 GHz because of the unattenuated propagation distance and better attenuated penetration. Which also helps duel band devices make better selections. However most devices have a fairly generous threshold on AP signal drop before they even try and probe for candidate APs to associate to. That's really where the controller based client stearing solutions come in to play with selective acks or the probes to get the client on the best AP regardless of what the client wants based on just Rx signal. -- -James ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs
In general, band-steering was something cooked up to deal with poorly implemented client chipsets/drivers, and as the years have gone on, the drivers/clients have gotten way better. I’ve worked with both the Cisco and Aruba version of this, and in every case, they tend to introduce interesting side-effects which require a lot of time to track down. My opinion is that it’s best to leave the broken clients broken then to risk the chance of having the band-steering interfere with a perfectly well-behaving client, especially if you are also using AP load balancing. In our environment, I see clients moving to 5 GHz as expected with no help from the controllers. Jeff From: wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edumailto:wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu on behalf of Jeremy Gibbs Reply-To: wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edumailto:wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu Date: Wednesday, August 12, 2015 at 4:39 PM To: wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edumailto:wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs Does anyone employ band-steering? When we enabled it, we saw a massive jump of users connecting at 5ghz. Obviously if the client doesn't support 5ghz or it just prefers 2.4 because of various factors it can stay on 2.4. I have only seen it improve throughput for everyone. Any opinions on this? We are an extreme network shop, but our wireless is the enterasys (chantry) solution with new 3825i 3x3. On Wednesday, August 12, 2015, Jeffrey D. Sessler j...@scrippscollege.edumailto:j...@scrippscollege.edu wrote: Single SSID – anything else just adds confusion for the end-user. Then again, I was recently visited a spot where they had a different SSID for every building. :) Thinking more about this… If residence halls (academic buildings too) are well designed around 5 GHz and use in-room AP placement, the issues with 2.4 tend to melt away (or you can ignore them), with clients only falling back to 2.4 when they transition outside of a building. If you’re a Cisco shop (I assume Aruba has something similar), their automatic RRM (radio resource management) and TPC (Transmit Power Control) tend to result in very tiny cells where there is a lot of 2.4 radios talking (which is a good thing - tiny cells). Of course, this can be really problematic if the AP layout design is not-optimal such as in a typically budget-driven “down the center of the hallway” methods of deployment where adjacent AP’s tend to have clear line-of-sight of each other. In cases such as these, the reduction in radio output to reduce AP channel overlap can result in client connection troubles i.e. The clients are probably behind fire–proof metal clad doors, brick walls, etc. Coupled with coverage hole detection (where AP power is increased for client connectivity), you now have an environment that’s in constant chaos, where someone has to do a lot of manual adjusting of AP radios or disable the auto-adjusting. On the other hand, if AP layout is optimal where you’re deploying AP’s in-room, lower on the wall, avoiding line-of-sight, etc. then you get the benefit of the room’s construction (doors, floors, walls, what inside the walls, bed, desks, etc.). All of which help promote small cell isolation and reduce the number of adjacent neighbor AP’s you’ll see, resulting in less 2.4 GHz channel overlap. Now then, the same issues can crop up in 5 GHz, but it doesn’t propagate as far, so if you're using the in-room deployment method, it’s likely not as big of an issue even in dense deployments. That said, if you do have dense 5 GHz deployments, Cisco’s 8.1 code introduces 5 GHz dynamic channel-width allocation, somewhat eliminating the issue by dynamically moving between 20, 40, and 80 MHz channels. In my opinion, 2.4 GHz is slowly marching to its demise, and I’m focusing all of my attention on 5 GHz. We have the luxury of of a robust Mac population (~80% of the students), and Apple laptops and desktops have long since had access to 5GHz, so I’m not sure how much effort should be put into maintaining 2.4 if it’s ultimately only being used by old phones, devices that move little data, or have alternative data paths such as cellular, why expend a lot of effort on it? Jeff From: wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edujavascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu'); on behalf of Stephen Oglesby Reply-To: wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edujavascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu'); Date: Wednesday, August 12, 2015 at 9:41 AM To: wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edujavascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu'); Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs Paul, We're an Aruba shop and, as Bruce of Liberty mentioned, for dense deployments we turn 2.4 ghz radios off on every other AP (typically edge of building APs). Our main performance issues were due to interference and channel
RE: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs
Many thanks to everyone for their input, we have some great information moving forward to consider in terms of a final decision. Paul Sedy The Master’s College Director of IT Operations 21726 Placerita Canyon Rd, Santa Clarita, CA 91321 661.362.2340 | rps...@masters.edu #private From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Jeffrey D. Sessler Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2015 1:49 PM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs Single SSID – anything else just adds confusion for the end-user. Then again, I was recently visited a spot where they had a different SSID for every building. :) Thinking more about this… If residence halls (academic buildings too) are well designed around 5 GHz and use in-room AP placement, the issues with 2.4 tend to melt away (or you can ignore them), with clients only falling back to 2.4 when they transition outside of a building. If you’re a Cisco shop (I assume Aruba has something similar), their automatic RRM (radio resource management) and TPC (Transmit Power Control) tend to result in very tiny cells where there is a lot of 2.4 radios talking (which is a good thing - tiny cells). Of course, this can be really problematic if the AP layout design is not-optimal such as in a typically budget-driven “down the center of the hallway” methods of deployment where adjacent AP’s tend to have clear line-of-sight of each other. In cases such as these, the reduction in radio output to reduce AP channel overlap can result in client connection troubles i.e. The clients are probably behind fire–proof metal clad doors, brick walls, etc. Coupled with coverage hole detection (where AP power is increased for client connectivity), you now have an environment that’s in constant chaos, where someone has to do a lot of manual adjusting of AP radios or disable the auto-adjusting. On the other hand, if AP layout is optimal where you’re deploying AP’s in-room, lower on the wall, avoiding line-of-sight, etc. then you get the benefit of the room’s construction (doors, floors, walls, what inside the walls, bed, desks, etc.). All of which help promote small cell isolation and reduce the number of adjacent neighbor AP’s you’ll see, resulting in less 2.4 GHz channel overlap. Now then, the same issues can crop up in 5 GHz, but it doesn’t propagate as far, so if you're using the in-room deployment method, it’s likely not as big of an issue even in dense deployments. That said, if you do have dense 5 GHz deployments, Cisco’s 8.1 code introduces 5 GHz dynamic channel-width allocation, somewhat eliminating the issue by dynamically moving between 20, 40, and 80 MHz channels. In my opinion, 2.4 GHz is slowly marching to its demise, and I’m focusing all of my attention on 5 GHz. We have the luxury of of a robust Mac population (~80% of the students), and Apple laptops and desktops have long since had access to 5GHz, so I’m not sure how much effort should be put into maintaining 2.4 if it’s ultimately only being used by old phones, devices that move little data, or have alternative data paths such as cellular, why expend a lot of effort on it? Jeff From: wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edumailto:wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu on behalf of Stephen Oglesby Reply-To: wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edumailto:wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu Date: Wednesday, August 12, 2015 at 9:41 AM To: wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edumailto:wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs Paul, We're an Aruba shop and, as Bruce of Liberty mentioned, for dense deployments we turn 2.4 ghz radios off on every other AP (typically edge of building APs). Our main performance issues were due to interference and channel utilization on the 2.4 ghz spectrum. We attempted reducing 2.4 ghz (20 mhz channel) transmit power but still had issues. I also agree with keeping to the simplicity of a single SSID if at all possible. I can't imagine the number of issues that would be reported to me simply because the user exited the ideal range for 5ghz spectrum. Our student and staff networks support a wide range of client wireless cards, antenna configurations, and spectrum compatibility (many are including 2.4ghz only). Having users manually switch networks as needed may cause HelpDesk to become very popular. Good Luck, Stephen Oglesby Network and Telecommunications Architect Aims Community College 5401 W. 20th Street Greeley, CO 80634 970.339.6350 (Office) stephen.ogle...@aims.edumailto:stephen.ogle...@aims.edu IT staff will never ask you for your username and password. Always decline to provide the information and report such attempts to the help desk (x6380). On Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 8:24 AM, Philippe Hanset phan...@anyroam.netmailto:phan...@anyroam.net wrote: Paul, Dorm design is an animal
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs
On the Cisco, you also have a choice between TPCv1 coverage optimal mode or TPCv2 Interference Optimal. For dense deployments, you really want to be using TPCv2. Jeff On 8/13/15, 1:05 PM, The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv on behalf of James Michael Keller WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU on behalf of jmkel...@houseofzen.org wrote: On 08/13/2015 03:40 PM, Chuck Enfield wrote: Just to be clear, we don’t have to do these things to make wireless work. It makes it work better. But it is sometimes necessary to make wireless work acceptably in the most challenging environments. That said, left to defaults Aruba’s ARM also adjusts 2.4 GHz Tx power way down. So far down, in fact, that coverage gaps show up. It also tends to keep power higher on busy APs and lower on less busy ones. In some cases the power on the 2.4 radio will be the same as the power on the 5 GHz radio. These characteristics forces us to configure a range of acceptable power levels for ARM to choose from. Once you’re doing that, why not select the optimum power levels? While I’m no expert on Cisco wireless, I have assisted some departments with problems on their Cisco infrastructure. Based on that limited experience, I have far less confidence in RRM than you seem to. The main issue is the defaults for Aruba are for coverage networks, not high density (30-40 ft) or very high density (30 Ft or less). You need to adjust the coverage index min/ideal for high density deployments so ARM will power down to Min TX powers without shutting down the 2.4 GHz radios due to CCI (even with edge detection for the APs the default will still end up with only a few 2.4 GHz APs). If you set Tx Min/Max to a 6dBm range the APs can power to around double the cell size for coverage gaps if a radio is down. I also like to set the 5 GHz Tx Min/Max range at least 3dBm higher then 2.4 GHz because of the unattenuated propagation distance and better attenuated penetration. Which also helps duel band devices make better selections. However most devices have a fairly generous threshold on AP signal drop before they even try and probe for candidate APs to associate to. That's really where the controller based client stearing solutions come in to play with selective acks or the probes to get the client on the best AP regardless of what the client wants based on just Rx signal. -- -James ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs
Paul, Dorm design is an animal of itself and each school has its own set of challenges based on locations and policies. As much as I agree that 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz shouldn’t be on separate SSIDs for main campus, I have really changed my mind for dormitories. Those buildings are really micro houses stacked on top of each other with people bringing anything and everything they want which is quite different than academic buildings. We all spend our summers designing the best coverage that we can for those residential areas, and as soon as students move in, the interference in 2.4 GHz makes our entire effort look pointless in the eyes of the complaining student who is actually partly responsible for the problem. So, in dormitories only, I would have the regular set of SSIDs that the campus provides plus and extra 5 GHz only called something like residential-preferred. But I wouldn’t use “fast” or “5GHz” in the SSID name. Best, Philippe Philippe Hanset www.eduroam.us On Aug 11, 2015, at 4:22 PM, Paul Sedy rps...@masters.edu wrote: Hello everyone, We are a Cisco shop and have, up until now, employed a single SSID for students, supporting both 2.4 Ghz and 5Ghz connections. During this summer, we have been working to develop sufficient AP density to ensure good 5Ghz cells throughout our dorms. In the past, we have seen numerous instances of poorer performance on the 2.4 Ghz spectrum, but up to this point, have relied on the client to make the decision between these two options. We are thinking of deploying two separate SSIDs, a 5Ghz network and a 2.4 Ghz network, that are exclusive in order to promote a better experience for the students with devices capable of 5Ghz connectivity. We would probably use the original SSID name with an appended (5 Ghz) or (2.4 Ghz). Are any of you currently employing this type of configuration and how well has it worked for you? We would appreciate any insights that anyone might have. Paul Sedy The Master’s College Director of IT Operations 21726 Placerita Canyon Rd, Santa Clarita, CA 91321 661.362.2340 | rps...@masters.edu mailto:rps...@masters.edu** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/ http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs
Does anyone employ band-steering? When we enabled it, we saw a massive jump of users connecting at 5ghz. Obviously if the client doesn't support 5ghz or it just prefers 2.4 because of various factors it can stay on 2.4. I have only seen it improve throughput for everyone. Any opinions on this? We are an extreme network shop, but our wireless is the enterasys (chantry) solution with new 3825i 3x3. On Wednesday, August 12, 2015, Jeffrey D. Sessler j...@scrippscollege.edu wrote: Single SSID – anything else just adds confusion for the end-user. Then again, I was recently visited a spot where they had a different SSID for every building. :) Thinking more about this… If residence halls (academic buildings too) are well designed around 5 GHz and use in-room AP placement, the issues with 2.4 tend to melt away (or you can ignore them), with clients only falling back to 2.4 when they transition outside of a building. If you’re a Cisco shop (I assume Aruba has something similar), their automatic RRM (radio resource management) and TPC (Transmit Power Control) tend to result in very tiny cells where there is a lot of 2.4 radios talking (which is a good thing - tiny cells). Of course, this can be really problematic if the AP layout design is not-optimal such as in a typically budget-driven “down the center of the hallway” methods of deployment where adjacent AP’s tend to have clear line-of-sight of each other. In cases such as these, the reduction in radio output to reduce AP channel overlap can result in client connection troubles i.e. The clients are probably behind fire–proof metal clad doors, brick walls, etc. Coupled with coverage hole detection (where AP power is increased for client connectivity), you now have an environment that’s in constant chaos, where someone has to do a lot of manual adjusting of AP radios or disable the auto-adjusting. On the other hand, if AP layout is optimal where you’re deploying AP’s in-room, lower on the wall, avoiding line-of-sight, etc. then you get the benefit of the room’s construction (doors, floors, walls, what inside the walls, bed, desks, etc.). All of which help promote small cell isolation and reduce the number of adjacent neighbor AP’s you’ll see, resulting in less 2.4 GHz channel overlap. Now then, the same issues can crop up in 5 GHz, but it doesn’t propagate as far, so if you're using the in-room deployment method, it’s likely not as big of an issue even in dense deployments. That said, if you do have dense 5 GHz deployments, Cisco’s 8.1 code introduces 5 GHz dynamic channel-width allocation, somewhat eliminating the issue by dynamically moving between 20, 40, and 80 MHz channels. In my opinion, 2.4 GHz is slowly marching to its demise, and I’m focusing all of my attention on 5 GHz. We have the luxury of of a robust Mac population (~80% of the students), and Apple laptops and desktops have long since had access to 5GHz, so I’m not sure how much effort should be put into maintaining 2.4 if it’s ultimately only being used by old phones, devices that move little data, or have alternative data paths such as cellular, why expend a lot of effort on it? Jeff From: wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu'); on behalf of Stephen Oglesby Reply-To: wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu'); Date: Wednesday, August 12, 2015 at 9:41 AM To: wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu'); Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs Paul, We're an Aruba shop and, as Bruce of Liberty mentioned, for dense deployments we turn 2.4 ghz radios off on every other AP (typically edge of building APs). Our main performance issues were due to interference and channel utilization on the 2.4 ghz spectrum. We attempted reducing 2.4 ghz (20 mhz channel) transmit power but still had issues. I also agree with keeping to the simplicity of a single SSID if at all possible. I can't imagine the number of issues that would be reported to me simply because the user exited the ideal range for 5ghz spectrum. Our student and staff networks support a wide range of client wireless cards, antenna configurations, and spectrum compatibility (many are including 2.4ghz only). Having users manually switch networks as needed may cause HelpDesk to become very popular. Good Luck, Stephen Oglesby Network and Telecommunications Architect Aims Community College 5401 W. 20th Street Greeley, CO 80634 970.339.6350 (Office) stephen.ogle...@aims.edu javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','stephen.ogle...@aims.edu'); *IT staff will never ask you for your username and password. Always decline to provide the information and report such attempts to the help desk (x6380).* On Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 8:24 AM, Philippe Hanset phan...@anyroam.net javascript:_e
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs
In some areas of campus I have enabled a sort of band-steering. Our multi-radio Xirrus units will attempt to load balance across their 8 radios. I am running 2x2GHz radios, 5x5GHz radios, and 1 radio in monitor mode. When I turn this setting on, the AP will attempt to steer the client away from highly-utilized radios and toward underutilized ones. When I turned this on, those units moved from almost entirely 2GHz clients to having approximately half and half 2GHz and 5GHz.. -- Hunter Fuller Network Engineer VBRH M-9B +1 256 824 5331 Office of Information Technology The University of Alabama in Huntsville Systems and Infrastructure I am part of the UAH Safe Zone LGBTQIA support network: http://www.uah.edu/student-affairs/safe-zone On Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 6:39 PM, Jeremy Gibbs jlgi...@utica.edu wrote: Does anyone employ band-steering? When we enabled it, we saw a massive jump of users connecting at 5ghz. Obviously if the client doesn't support 5ghz or it just prefers 2.4 because of various factors it can stay on 2.4. I have only seen it improve throughput for everyone. Any opinions on this? We are an extreme network shop, but our wireless is the enterasys (chantry) solution with new 3825i 3x3. On Wednesday, August 12, 2015, Jeffrey D. Sessler j...@scrippscollege.edu wrote: Single SSID – anything else just adds confusion for the end-user. Then again, I was recently visited a spot where they had a different SSID for every building. :) Thinking more about this… If residence halls (academic buildings too) are well designed around 5 GHz and use in-room AP placement, the issues with 2.4 tend to melt away (or you can ignore them), with clients only falling back to 2.4 when they transition outside of a building. If you’re a Cisco shop (I assume Aruba has something similar), their automatic RRM (radio resource management) and TPC (Transmit Power Control) tend to result in very tiny cells where there is a lot of 2.4 radios talking (which is a good thing - tiny cells). Of course, this can be really problematic if the AP layout design is not-optimal such as in a typically budget-driven “down the center of the hallway” methods of deployment where adjacent AP’s tend to have clear line-of-sight of each other. In cases such as these, the reduction in radio output to reduce AP channel overlap can result in client connection troubles i.e. The clients are probably behind fire–proof metal clad doors, brick walls, etc. Coupled with coverage hole detection (where AP power is increased for client connectivity), you now have an environment that’s in constant chaos, where someone has to do a lot of manual adjusting of AP radios or disable the auto-adjusting. On the other hand, if AP layout is optimal where you’re deploying AP’s in-room, lower on the wall, avoiding line-of-sight, etc. then you get the benefit of the room’s construction (doors, floors, walls, what inside the walls, bed, desks, etc.). All of which help promote small cell isolation and reduce the number of adjacent neighbor AP’s you’ll see, resulting in less 2.4 GHz channel overlap. Now then, the same issues can crop up in 5 GHz, but it doesn’t propagate as far, so if you're using the in-room deployment method, it’s likely not as big of an issue even in dense deployments. That said, if you do have dense 5 GHz deployments, Cisco’s 8.1 code introduces 5 GHz dynamic channel-width allocation, somewhat eliminating the issue by dynamically moving between 20, 40, and 80 MHz channels. In my opinion, 2.4 GHz is slowly marching to its demise, and I’m focusing all of my attention on 5 GHz. We have the luxury of of a robust Mac population (~80% of the students), and Apple laptops and desktops have long since had access to 5GHz, so I’m not sure how much effort should be put into maintaining 2.4 if it’s ultimately only being used by old phones, devices that move little data, or have alternative data paths such as cellular, why expend a lot of effort on it? Jeff From: wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu on behalf of Stephen Oglesby Reply-To: wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu Date: Wednesday, August 12, 2015 at 9:41 AM To: wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs Paul, We're an Aruba shop and, as Bruce of Liberty mentioned, for dense deployments we turn 2.4 ghz radios off on every other AP (typically edge of building APs). Our main performance issues were due to interference and channel utilization on the 2.4 ghz spectrum. We attempted reducing 2.4 ghz (20 mhz channel) transmit power but still had issues. I also agree with keeping to the simplicity of a single SSID if at all possible. I can't imagine the number of issues that would be reported to me simply because the user exited the ideal range for 5ghz spectrum. Our student and staff networks support a wide range of client wireless cards, antenna configurations, and spectrum
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs
Single SSID – anything else just adds confusion for the end-user. Then again, I was recently visited a spot where they had a different SSID for every building. :) Thinking more about this… If residence halls (academic buildings too) are well designed around 5 GHz and use in-room AP placement, the issues with 2.4 tend to melt away (or you can ignore them), with clients only falling back to 2.4 when they transition outside of a building. If you’re a Cisco shop (I assume Aruba has something similar), their automatic RRM (radio resource management) and TPC (Transmit Power Control) tend to result in very tiny cells where there is a lot of 2.4 radios talking (which is a good thing - tiny cells). Of course, this can be really problematic if the AP layout design is not-optimal such as in a typically budget-driven “down the center of the hallway” methods of deployment where adjacent AP’s tend to have clear line-of-sight of each other. In cases such as these, the reduction in radio output to reduce AP channel overlap can result in client connection troubles i.e. The clients are probably behind fire–proof metal clad doors, brick walls, etc. Coupled with coverage hole detection (where AP power is increased for client connectivity), you now have an environment that’s in constant chaos, where someone has to do a lot of manual adjusting of AP radios or disable the auto-adjusting. On the other hand, if AP layout is optimal where you’re deploying AP’s in-room, lower on the wall, avoiding line-of-sight, etc. then you get the benefit of the room’s construction (doors, floors, walls, what inside the walls, bed, desks, etc.). All of which help promote small cell isolation and reduce the number of adjacent neighbor AP’s you’ll see, resulting in less 2.4 GHz channel overlap. Now then, the same issues can crop up in 5 GHz, but it doesn’t propagate as far, so if you're using the in-room deployment method, it’s likely not as big of an issue even in dense deployments. That said, if you do have dense 5 GHz deployments, Cisco’s 8.1 code introduces 5 GHz dynamic channel-width allocation, somewhat eliminating the issue by dynamically moving between 20, 40, and 80 MHz channels. In my opinion, 2.4 GHz is slowly marching to its demise, and I’m focusing all of my attention on 5 GHz. We have the luxury of of a robust Mac population (~80% of the students), and Apple laptops and desktops have long since had access to 5GHz, so I’m not sure how much effort should be put into maintaining 2.4 if it’s ultimately only being used by old phones, devices that move little data, or have alternative data paths such as cellular, why expend a lot of effort on it? Jeff From: wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edumailto:wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu on behalf of Stephen Oglesby Reply-To: wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edumailto:wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu Date: Wednesday, August 12, 2015 at 9:41 AM To: wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edumailto:wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs Paul, We're an Aruba shop and, as Bruce of Liberty mentioned, for dense deployments we turn 2.4 ghz radios off on every other AP (typically edge of building APs). Our main performance issues were due to interference and channel utilization on the 2.4 ghz spectrum. We attempted reducing 2.4 ghz (20 mhz channel) transmit power but still had issues. I also agree with keeping to the simplicity of a single SSID if at all possible. I can't imagine the number of issues that would be reported to me simply because the user exited the ideal range for 5ghz spectrum. Our student and staff networks support a wide range of client wireless cards, antenna configurations, and spectrum compatibility (many are including 2.4ghz only). Having users manually switch networks as needed may cause HelpDesk to become very popular. Good Luck, Stephen Oglesby Network and Telecommunications Architect Aims Community College 5401 W. 20th Street Greeley, CO 80634 970.339.6350 (Office) stephen.ogle...@aims.edumailto:stephen.ogle...@aims.edu IT staff will never ask you for your username and password. Always decline to provide the information and report such attempts to the help desk (x6380). On Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 8:24 AM, Philippe Hanset phan...@anyroam.netmailto:phan...@anyroam.net wrote: Paul, Dorm design is an animal of itself and each school has its own set of challenges based on locations and policies. As much as I agree that 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz shouldn’t be on separate SSIDs for main campus, I have really changed my mind for dormitories. Those buildings are really micro houses stacked on top of each other with people bringing anything and everything they want which is quite different than academic buildings. We all spend our summers designing the best coverage that we can for those residential areas, and as soon as students move in, the interference in 2.4 GHz makes our
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs
Yes, we use band-steering and I recommend it over the different SSID approach. If a device chooses the 2.4 GHz SSID on its own, most people won't notice for quite some time. How often have you found your device on an SSID other than the one you intended? My Netgear router at home won't let me use the same SSID on both bands. (I'll resist the temptation to comment on that feature.) Every now and then I notice that my phone is connecting on the 2.4 GHz SSID instead of 5 GHz. It's hard to say how long my phone was connecting to the wrong SSID before I noticed. At work, my phone sometimes connects to the wrong SSID, but it ALWAYS connects at 5 GHz There are design techniques that will result in a significant majority of clients connecting to 5 GHz radios. If you make dual-band devices want to connect to 5 GHz I believe you'll end up with a higher percentage of device connected in that band than you'll get through the two SSID method. It's possible to get a majority of dual-band devices onto 5 GHz even without band-steering. Band-steering helps for those oddball devices that just won't go there by themselves, but that's less than 10%. At PSU we attempt to optimize 5 GHz coverage, then adjust 2.4 GHz to do the best it can within that AP layout. This allows us some flexibility with 2.4 GHz parameters. Even with the compromised settings, 2.4 GHz isn't usually too bad. With 75% of the devices on 5 GHz, 2.4 GHz is usually acceptable for the clients that remain on it. In summary, our approach for getting clients onto 5 GHz is: 1. Have good 5 GHz coverage everywhere. 25dB SNR. Not only will this make 5 GHz attractive, but most devices won't probe for a better AP once connected, which keeps the air cleaner. 2, Turn down power on 2.4 GHz so it is at least 3 dB weaker than 5 GHz throughout the coverage area. This is what makes the devices prefer 5 GHz. (It may go without saying given this recommendation, but we configure the AP with a fixed Tx power. RF management only chooses the channel. The benefits of optimizing the power settings of the two radios on an AP easily outweigh the benefits of the crappy power adjustment algorithms used by the AP manufacturers.) 3. Turn off 2.4 GHz radios only when necessary to avoid egregious CCI. It's usually only needed in locations with a really high AP density, like auditoriums or lots of adjacent classrooms, although it's also sometimes needed if walls are close together and construction materials have a much higher loss at 5 GHz than at 2.4 GHz, as is common in dorms. Turning off 2.4 GHz radios results in uneven coverage, which makes it hard to keep the signal weaker than 5 GHz everywhere without having gaps in the 2.4 GHz coverage. 4. Enable band steering. 5. Make sure no other settings are undermining band-steering. (Aruba's default settings for Client Match undermine band steering when there's a strong 2.4 GHz signal. Shout-out to Jason Mueller at Iowa for bringing that one to my attention.) 6. Adjust load balancing parameters such that clients are only pushed to 2.4 GHz if 2.4 GHz utilization is VERY low. If you do these things almost everybody with a 5 GHz radio will connect at 5 GHz. If your AP of choice doesn't support band-steering, adjustment of load balancing parameters, or a wide enough range of power settings, maybe two SSIDs is the way to go. But then I'd start shopping for a new AP, because it's not the right product for higher ed. Chuck From: Jeremy Gibbs jlgi...@utica.edu To: EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2015 7:39:29 PM Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs Does anyone employ band-steering? When we enabled it, we saw a massive jump of users connecting at 5ghz. Obviously if the client doesn't support 5ghz or it just prefers 2.4 because of various factors it can stay on 2.4. I have only seen it improve throughput for everyone. Any opinions on this? We are an extreme network shop, but our wireless is the enterasys (chantry) solution with new 3825i 3x3. On Wednesday, August 12, 2015, Jeffrey D. Sessler j...@scrippscollege.edu wrote: Single SSID – anything else just adds confusion for the end-user. Then again, I was recently visited a spot where they had a different SSID for every building. :) Thinking more about this… If residence halls (academic buildings too) are well designed around 5 GHz and use in-room AP placement, the issues with 2.4 tend to melt away (or you can ignore them), with clients only falling back to 2.4 when they transition outside of a building. If you’re a Cisco shop (I assume Aruba has something similar), their automatic RRM (radio resource management) and TPC (Transmit Power Control) tend to result in very tiny cells where there is a lot of 2.4 radios talking (which is a good thing - tiny cells). Of course, this can be really problematic if the AP
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs
Paul, I am not a supporter of this. Mainly because I think Wi-Fi knowledge for the end-user should be minimised. Users should just see the SSID and connect; options to choose from should be minimized. The most important thing users must learn is checking the correctness of the Radius server to whom they give their credentials. For the rest, the device and the Wi-Fi infrastructure should do their very best in serving Wi-Fi users optimaly. Devices in general do a rather good job in selecting the best band. Besides, users have insufficient knowledge in making the right choice between the 2,4Ghz and 5Ghz bands. Note that choosing 5Ghz is simply not always the best choice. If you're too far away from the AP (or because of whether channels or interference on the 5Gh band), the 2,4Ghz band may be the better choice. Good devices switch between the frequencies, to serve users best. You disable that function by introducing separate SSIDs for both bands. -Frans Paul Sedy schreef op 11/08/15 om 22:22: Hello everyone, We are a Cisco shop and have, up until now, employed a single SSID for students, supporting both 2.4 Ghz and 5Ghz connections. During this summer, we have been working to develop sufficient AP density to ensure good 5Ghz cells throughout our dorms. In the past, we have seen numerous instances of poorer performance on the 2.4 Ghz spectrum, but up to this point, have relied on the client to make the decision between these two options. We are thinking of deploying two separate SSIDs, a 5Ghz network and a 2.4 Ghz network, that are exclusive in order to promote a better experience for the students with devices capable of 5Ghz connectivity. We would probably use the original SSID name with an appended (5 Ghz) or (2.4 Ghz). Are any of you currently employing this type of configuration and how well has it worked for you? We would appreciate any insights that anyone might have. Paul Sedy The Master’s College Director of IT Operations 21726 Placerita Canyon Rd, Santa Clarita, CA 91321 661.362.2340 | rps...@masters.edu ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
RE: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs
We were considered a similar approach last year but never completed the plan, mainly due to other priorities and having already kind of implemented one. Rather than go a 2.4 and a 5 the plan was to leave our normal network “UofA” as dual and create new network “UofA Premium” or some ‘join me I’m better’ name. We already have a “UofA 5ghz” network so the premium would have simply replaced that and we would have advertised it (website, email etc not broadcast). It was more of a time thing that we didn’t go ahead but now we don’t see it as such an issue. The name change really was about users seeing “UofA Premium” and believing that it would be a better service would attempt to use it over UofA. Where’s UofA 5ghz is technical and means nothing. As mentioned already 5ghz isn’t always better, so advertising a “premium” service against it may have caused us more issues with higher expectations which might be met in most cases but could be worse if 2.4ghz was a better choice for a location for example. Also devices are now much better at selecting 5 over 2.4 We already offer a 5 only, and users struggling with experience are recommended to try this if they support it. It was first created to deal with some high interference areas where other wireless networks are unavoidable but made it to main campus and some users have found it better…. Or just another one to hop to during issues maybe that could have also been fixed with disconnect/reconnect. ….. So the plan now is continue as we are, we first and foremost recommend UofA with UofA and eduroam configured by our onboarding tool. But we do provide a 5ghz only option to provide for the exception cases. Ideally we’ll remove it one day. -- Jason Cook The University of Adelaide, AUSTRALIA 5005 Ph: +61 8 8313 4800 From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Mathieu Sturm Sent: Wednesday, 12 August 2015 6:36 PM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs I agree with Frans, the users in general don’t have the knowledge to decide. They will see 5Ghz, google it and see: oh it’s faster. They don’t realize other factors could make 2.4Ghz the better choice. We have one SSID and let the devices make the right choice. Mathieu Sturm Hoofdmedewerker Server – en netwerkbeheer -- [http://www.hogent.be/www/assets/Image/maillogo.png] Hogeschool Gent Dienst Financiën en ICT Valentin Vaerwyckweg 1 BE-9000 Gent T + 32 92433523 mathieu.st...@hogent.bemailto:mathieu.st...@hogent.be HoGent.be Van: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] Namens Frans Panken Verzonden: woensdag 12 augustus 2015 8:31 Aan: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDUmailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Onderwerp: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs Paul, I am not a supporter of this. Mainly because I think Wi-Fi knowledge for the end-user should be minimised. Users should just see the SSID and connect; options to choose from should be minimized. The most important thing users must learn is checking the correctness of the Radius server to whom they give their credentials. For the rest, the device and the Wi-Fi infrastructure should do their very best in serving Wi-Fi users optimaly. Devices in general do a rather good job in selecting the best band. Besides, users have insufficient knowledge in making the right choice between the 2,4Ghz and 5Ghz bands. Note that choosing 5Ghz is simply not always the best choice. If you're too far away from the AP (or because of whether channels or interference on the 5Gh band), the 2,4Ghz band may be the better choice. Good devices switch between the frequencies, to serve users best. You disable that function by introducing separate SSIDs for both bands. -Frans Paul Sedy schreef op 11/08/15 om 22:22: Hello everyone, We are a Cisco shop and have, up until now, employed a single SSID for students, supporting both 2.4 Ghz and 5Ghz connections. During this summer, we have been working to develop sufficient AP density to ensure good 5Ghz cells throughout our dorms. In the past, we have seen numerous instances of poorer performance on the 2.4 Ghz spectrum, but up to this point, have relied on the client to make the decision between these two options. We are thinking of deploying two separate SSIDs, a 5Ghz network and a 2.4 Ghz network, that are exclusive in order to promote a better experience for the students with devices capable of 5Ghz connectivity. We would probably use the original SSID name with an appended (5 Ghz) or (2.4 Ghz). Are any of you currently employing this type of configuration and how well has it worked for you? We would appreciate any insights that anyone might have. Paul Sedy The Master’s College Director of IT Operations 21726 Placerita Canyon Rd, Santa
RE: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs
Dear Paul, Our Wi-Fi at AUBG is Trapeze/Juniper. Two years ago we installed WLA322 dual-radio, 802.11n capable, 2x2 MIMO in every dorm room (370 new + approx. 175 existing 2.4 Ghz capable only devices). During fine tuning of the system with new AP’s we broadcasted separate SSID’s for 2.4 Ghz and for 5 Ghz. Based on accumulated experience this summer we switched to single SSID and left band selection to the control system. I support Frans that user should see SSID and connect. Thank you! Best, Latcho [cid:image001.jpg@01D0D4F7.4F1E49A0] Latchezar Filtchev Director Office of Communications and Computing Telephone: +359 73 | 888 346 | E-mail: lat...@aubg.edumailto:lat...@aubg.edu Office of Communications and Computing Main building, room 118 1 G.Izmirliev sq.; 2700 Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria [cid:image002.jpg@01D0D4F7.4F1E49A0] From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Frans Panken Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2015 9:31 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs Paul, I am not a supporter of this. Mainly because I think Wi-Fi knowledge for the end-user should be minimised. Users should just see the SSID and connect; options to choose from should be minimized. The most important thing users must learn is checking the correctness of the Radius server to whom they give their credentials. For the rest, the device and the Wi-Fi infrastructure should do their very best in serving Wi-Fi users optimaly. Devices in general do a rather good job in selecting the best band. Besides, users have insufficient knowledge in making the right choice between the 2,4Ghz and 5Ghz bands. Note that choosing 5Ghz is simply not always the best choice. If you're too far away from the AP (or because of whether channels or interference on the 5Gh band), the 2,4Ghz band may be the better choice. Good devices switch between the frequencies, to serve users best. You disable that function by introducing separate SSIDs for both bands. -Frans Paul Sedy schreef op 11/08/15 om 22:22: Hello everyone, We are a Cisco shop and have, up until now, employed a single SSID for students, supporting both 2.4 Ghz and 5Ghz connections. During this summer, we have been working to develop sufficient AP density to ensure good 5Ghz cells throughout our dorms. In the past, we have seen numerous instances of poorer performance on the 2.4 Ghz spectrum, but up to this point, have relied on the client to make the decision between these two options. We are thinking of deploying two separate SSIDs, a 5Ghz network and a 2.4 Ghz network, that are exclusive in order to promote a better experience for the students with devices capable of 5Ghz connectivity. We would probably use the original SSID name with an appended (5 Ghz) or (2.4 Ghz). Are any of you currently employing this type of configuration and how well has it worked for you? We would appreciate any insights that anyone might have. Paul Sedy The Master’s College Director of IT Operations 21726 Placerita Canyon Rd, Santa Clarita, CA 91321 661.362.2340 | rps...@masters.edumailto:rps...@masters.edu ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
RE: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs
I agree with Frans, the users in general don’t have the knowledge to decide. They will see 5Ghz, google it and see: oh it’s faster. They don’t realize other factors could make 2.4Ghz the better choice. We have one SSID and let the devices make the right choice. Mathieu Sturm Hoofdmedewerker Server – en netwerkbeheer -- [http://www.hogent.be/www/assets/Image/maillogo.png] Hogeschool Gent Dienst Financiën en ICT Valentin Vaerwyckweg 1 BE-9000 Gent T + 32 92433523 mathieu.st...@hogent.be HoGent.be Van: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] Namens Frans Panken Verzonden: woensdag 12 augustus 2015 8:31 Aan: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Onderwerp: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs Paul, I am not a supporter of this. Mainly because I think Wi-Fi knowledge for the end-user should be minimised. Users should just see the SSID and connect; options to choose from should be minimized. The most important thing users must learn is checking the correctness of the Radius server to whom they give their credentials. For the rest, the device and the Wi-Fi infrastructure should do their very best in serving Wi-Fi users optimaly. Devices in general do a rather good job in selecting the best band. Besides, users have insufficient knowledge in making the right choice between the 2,4Ghz and 5Ghz bands. Note that choosing 5Ghz is simply not always the best choice. If you're too far away from the AP (or because of whether channels or interference on the 5Gh band), the 2,4Ghz band may be the better choice. Good devices switch between the frequencies, to serve users best. You disable that function by introducing separate SSIDs for both bands. -Frans Paul Sedy schreef op 11/08/15 om 22:22: Hello everyone, We are a Cisco shop and have, up until now, employed a single SSID for students, supporting both 2.4 Ghz and 5Ghz connections. During this summer, we have been working to develop sufficient AP density to ensure good 5Ghz cells throughout our dorms. In the past, we have seen numerous instances of poorer performance on the 2.4 Ghz spectrum, but up to this point, have relied on the client to make the decision between these two options. We are thinking of deploying two separate SSIDs, a 5Ghz network and a 2.4 Ghz network, that are exclusive in order to promote a better experience for the students with devices capable of 5Ghz connectivity. We would probably use the original SSID name with an appended (5 Ghz) or (2.4 Ghz). Are any of you currently employing this type of configuration and how well has it worked for you? We would appreciate any insights that anyone might have. Paul Sedy The Master’s College Director of IT Operations 21726 Placerita Canyon Rd, Santa Clarita, CA 91321 661.362.2340 | rps...@masters.edumailto:rps...@masters.edu ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs
Paul, We're an Aruba shop and, as Bruce of Liberty mentioned, for dense deployments we turn 2.4 ghz radios off on every other AP (typically edge of building APs). Our main performance issues were due to interference and channel utilization on the 2.4 ghz spectrum. We attempted reducing 2.4 ghz (20 mhz channel) transmit power but still had issues. I also agree with keeping to the simplicity of a single SSID if at all possible. I can't imagine the number of issues that would be reported to me simply because the user exited the ideal range for 5ghz spectrum. Our student and staff networks support a wide range of client wireless cards, antenna configurations, and spectrum compatibility (many are including 2.4ghz only). Having users manually switch networks as needed may cause HelpDesk to become very popular. Good Luck, Stephen Oglesby Network and Telecommunications Architect Aims Community College 5401 W. 20th Street Greeley, CO 80634 970.339.6350 (Office) stephen.ogle...@aims.edu *IT staff will never ask you for your username and password. Always decline to provide the information and report such attempts to the help desk (x6380).* On Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 8:24 AM, Philippe Hanset phan...@anyroam.net wrote: Paul, Dorm design is an animal of itself and each school has its own set of challenges based on locations and policies. As much as I agree that 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz shouldn’t be on separate SSIDs for main campus, I have really changed my mind for dormitories. Those buildings are really micro houses stacked on top of each other with people bringing anything and everything they want which is quite different than academic buildings. We all spend our summers designing the best coverage that we can for those residential areas, and as soon as students move in, the interference in 2.4 GHz makes our entire effort look pointless in the eyes of the complaining student who is actually partly responsible for the problem. So, in dormitories only, I would have the regular set of SSIDs that the campus provides plus and extra 5 GHz only called something like residential-preferred. But I wouldn’t use “fast” or “5GHz” in the SSID name. Best, Philippe Philippe Hanset www.eduroam.us On Aug 11, 2015, at 4:22 PM, Paul Sedy rps...@masters.edu wrote: Hello everyone, We are a Cisco shop and have, up until now, employed a single SSID for students, supporting both 2.4 Ghz and 5Ghz connections. During this summer, we have been working to develop sufficient AP density to ensure good 5Ghz cells throughout our dorms. In the past, we have seen numerous instances of poorer performance on the 2.4 Ghz spectrum, but up to this point, have relied on the client to make the decision between these two options. We are thinking of deploying two separate SSIDs, a 5Ghz network and a 2.4 Ghz network, that are exclusive in order to promote a better experience for the students with devices capable of 5Ghz connectivity. We would probably use the original SSID name with an appended (5 Ghz) or (2.4 Ghz). Are any of you currently employing this type of configuration and how well has it worked for you? We would appreciate any insights that anyone might have. Paul Sedy The Master’s College Director of IT Operations 21726 Placerita Canyon Rd, Santa Clarita, CA 91321 661.362.2340 | rps...@masters.edu ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs
Paul, Similar to the concept that Jason mentioned earlier, I heard of a wireless setup at an Educause conference a while back with separate SSIDs for 2.4 and 5. What helped them, unfortunately can't remember who it was, was adding 'FAST' to the 5Ghz SSID name to help steer users to the 5Ghz band. Once they did that the uptick of devices on the 5Ghz band increased greatly. They had two separate SSIDs before with 2.4 and 5Ghz but it was only after they changed the SSID name to include FAST that they saw that improvement. I also agree that the 2.4 and 5 should not show up in the SSID name. Dave Tevlin Network/ Systems Administrator Georgetown Visitation Prep School On Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 7:35 AM, Osborne, Bruce W (Network Services) bosbo...@liberty.edu wrote: Why not just deploy the 2.4 GHz with the same SSID on a few of the APs? With our Aruba APs, that is the recommended solution in a dense situation. *Bruce Osborne* *Wireless Engineer* *IT Infrastructure Media Solutions* *(434) 592-4229 %28434%29%20592-4229* *LIBERTY UNIVERSITY* *Training Champions for Christ since 1971* *From:* Paul Sedy [mailto:rps...@masters.edu] *Sent:* Tuesday, August 11, 2015 4:23 PM *Subject:* Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs Hello everyone, We are a Cisco shop and have, up until now, employed a single SSID for students, supporting both 2.4 Ghz and 5Ghz connections. During this summer, we have been working to develop sufficient AP density to ensure good 5Ghz cells throughout our dorms. In the past, we have seen numerous instances of poorer performance on the 2.4 Ghz spectrum, but up to this point, have relied on the client to make the decision between these two options. We are thinking of deploying two separate SSIDs, a 5Ghz network and a 2.4 Ghz network, that are exclusive in order to promote a better experience for the students with devices capable of 5Ghz connectivity. We would probably use the original SSID name with an appended (5 Ghz) or (2.4 Ghz). Are any of you currently employing this type of configuration and how well has it worked for you? We would appreciate any insights that anyone might have. Paul Sedy The Master’s College Director of IT Operations 21726 Placerita Canyon Rd, Santa Clarita, CA 91321 661.362.2340 | rps...@masters.edu ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs
The challenge for FAST networks is when you don't have 5ghz dense enough to cover everywhere. What will happen is users will be walking and run into places where they drop from 5Ghz. And they will manually connect to the 2.4Ghz SSID. Without having the ability to tune which network is preferred, you can run into issues where the clients may start artificially preferring 2.4 because of the SSID priority order on their device. Bam, all that work and you may have made the problem worse. And certain devices don't let you explicitly set the priority order. iOS takes the last network used into account, security level, etc into account. I don't know if it still prefers the highest alphabetically or not. Appending FAST moves a network down in alphabetical order, which is the opposite of what you want. Now that a user has both SSIDs, as they walk along campus and they hit a 5ghz dead spot they will connect to the 2.4Ghz network which will remain preferred because It was the last network joined. For a device that already prefers 5ghz over 2.4ghz, that's not a great way to go. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202831 Thanks Jake Snyder Sent from my iPhone On Aug 12, 2015, at 6:07 AM, Tevlin, Dave dtev...@visi.org wrote: Paul, Similar to the concept that Jason mentioned earlier, I heard of a wireless setup at an Educause conference a while back with separate SSIDs for 2.4 and 5. What helped them, unfortunately can't remember who it was, was adding 'FAST' to the 5Ghz SSID name to help steer users to the 5Ghz band. Once they did that the uptick of devices on the 5Ghz band increased greatly. They had two separate SSIDs before with 2.4 and 5Ghz but it was only after they changed the SSID name to include FAST that they saw that improvement. I also agree that the 2.4 and 5 should not show up in the SSID name. Dave Tevlin Network/ Systems Administrator Georgetown Visitation Prep School On Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 7:35 AM, Osborne, Bruce W (Network Services) bosbo...@liberty.edu wrote: Why not just deploy the 2.4 GHz with the same SSID on a few of the APs? With our Aruba APs, that is the recommended solution in a dense situation. Bruce Osborne Wireless Engineer IT Infrastructure Media Solutions (434) 592-4229 LIBERTY UNIVERSITY Training Champions for Christ since 1971 From: Paul Sedy [mailto:rps...@masters.edu] Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2015 4:23 PM Subject: Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs Hello everyone, We are a Cisco shop and have, up until now, employed a single SSID for students, supporting both 2.4 Ghz and 5Ghz connections. During this summer, we have been working to develop sufficient AP density to ensure good 5Ghz cells throughout our dorms. In the past, we have seen numerous instances of poorer performance on the 2.4 Ghz spectrum, but up to this point, have relied on the client to make the decision between these two options. We are thinking of deploying two separate SSIDs, a 5Ghz network and a 2.4 Ghz network, that are exclusive in order to promote a better experience for the students with devices capable of 5Ghz connectivity. We would probably use the original SSID name with an appended (5 Ghz) or (2.4 Ghz). Are any of you currently employing this type of configuration and how well has it worked for you? We would appreciate any insights that anyone might have. Paul Sedy The Master’s College Director of IT Operations 21726 Placerita Canyon Rd, Santa Clarita, CA 91321 661.362.2340 | rps...@masters.edu ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Exclusive 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz SSIDs
At Drew we very recently moved away from multiple SSIDs for this purpose, but we had 'drew' on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz and '5drew' on just the 5GHz range. I don't remember exactly, but when we initially set it up some devices would connect in alphabetical order and preferred the 5drew network for that reason. Having the 'drew' SSID on both ranges gave the clients a few more options and let the APs do band steering. We've also noticed that clients have definitely been improving. It worked and there were definitely some people who loved it, but it was always a small portion of our wireless users that would be connected to 5drew. With improved AP density and better client-side decisions, we ended up dropping it. http://www.drew.edu/?utm_source=OneAndAll_Email_Footerutm_medium=emailutm_campaign=OneAndAll%2BFooter *Christopher Stave http://www.drew.edu/directory/?q=email:cstaveutm_source=FIL_Email_Footerutm_medium=emailutm_campaign=FIL%2BEmail%2BFooter* Network Administrator | University Technology http://www.drew.edu/ut?utm_source=FIL_Email_Footerutm_medium=emailutm_campaign=FIL%2BEmail%2BFooter Drew University | 36 Madison Ave | Madison, NJ 07940 (973) 408-3814 | drew.edu http://www.drew.edu/?utm_source=OneAndAll_Email_Footerutm_medium=emailutm_campaign=OneAndAll%2BFooter http://www.drew.edu/oneandall/?utm_sourceOneAndAllL_Email_Footerutm_medium=emailutm_campaign=OneAndAll%2BFooter On Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 12:41 PM, Stephen Oglesby stephen.ogle...@aims.edu wrote: Paul, We're an Aruba shop and, as Bruce of Liberty mentioned, for dense deployments we turn 2.4 ghz radios off on every other AP (typically edge of building APs). Our main performance issues were due to interference and channel utilization on the 2.4 ghz spectrum. We attempted reducing 2.4 ghz (20 mhz channel) transmit power but still had issues. I also agree with keeping to the simplicity of a single SSID if at all possible. I can't imagine the number of issues that would be reported to me simply because the user exited the ideal range for 5ghz spectrum. Our student and staff networks support a wide range of client wireless cards, antenna configurations, and spectrum compatibility (many are including 2.4ghz only). Having users manually switch networks as needed may cause HelpDesk to become very popular. Good Luck, Stephen Oglesby Network and Telecommunications Architect Aims Community College 5401 W. 20th Street Greeley, CO 80634 970.339.6350 (Office) stephen.ogle...@aims.edu *IT staff will never ask you for your username and password. Always decline to provide the information and report such attempts to the help desk (x6380).* On Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 8:24 AM, Philippe Hanset phan...@anyroam.net wrote: Paul, Dorm design is an animal of itself and each school has its own set of challenges based on locations and policies. As much as I agree that 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz shouldn’t be on separate SSIDs for main campus, I have really changed my mind for dormitories. Those buildings are really micro houses stacked on top of each other with people bringing anything and everything they want which is quite different than academic buildings. We all spend our summers designing the best coverage that we can for those residential areas, and as soon as students move in, the interference in 2.4 GHz makes our entire effort look pointless in the eyes of the complaining student who is actually partly responsible for the problem. So, in dormitories only, I would have the regular set of SSIDs that the campus provides plus and extra 5 GHz only called something like residential-preferred. But I wouldn’t use “fast” or “5GHz” in the SSID name. Best, Philippe Philippe Hanset www.eduroam.us On Aug 11, 2015, at 4:22 PM, Paul Sedy rps...@masters.edu wrote: Hello everyone, We are a Cisco shop and have, up until now, employed a single SSID for students, supporting both 2.4 Ghz and 5Ghz connections. During this summer, we have been working to develop sufficient AP density to ensure good 5Ghz cells throughout our dorms. In the past, we have seen numerous instances of poorer performance on the 2.4 Ghz spectrum, but up to this point, have relied on the client to make the decision between these two options. We are thinking of deploying two separate SSIDs, a 5Ghz network and a 2.4 Ghz network, that are exclusive in order to promote a better experience for the students with devices capable of 5Ghz connectivity. We would probably use the original SSID name with an appended (5 Ghz) or (2.4 Ghz). Are any of you currently employing this type of configuration and how well has it worked for you? We would appreciate any insights that anyone might have. Paul Sedy The Master’s College Director of IT Operations 21726 Placerita Canyon Rd, Santa Clarita, CA 91321 661.362.2340 | rps...@masters.edu ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion
