Hi John We're doing something similar and haven't seen any issues, and don't expect to. We have a lecture theatre with 3702e APs, then 2702i APs in the foyer. We plan to then use 1702i APs for the sparesely populated areas. The only difference tends to be the number of radios, with the exception of the 1702i which uses software based cleanair with a limited feature-set.
Oli On 6 February 2015 at 01:44, James Andrewartha <jandrewar...@ccgs.wa.edu.au> wrote: > On 05/02/15 22:50, Cosgrove, John wrote: > > I am designing a new wireless placement for a 5 story building and I > > have been considering mixing 802.11ac AP types. > > Is the switching existing? If so, 802.3af vs at would also inform the > decision. > > > Meaning. Some Cisco 1702’s,2702’s and 3702’s. Placement depending on > > estimated client densities. > > > > Example. Conference rooms may have 3702’s yet open areas with less > > people population may have a 1702 or 2702. > > I'm not particularly familiar with the Cisco range, but > > http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/technology/apdeploy/8-0/Cisco_Aironet_3700AP.html > (which covers [123][67]00[ei]) seems to have a pretty good feature > comparison. > > Lee, note it says "A single GbE cable is fine for Wave-1. While it is > true 802.11ac (Wave-2) will exceed GbE speeds, there is no need or > requirement for cabling greater then GbE for 802.11ac Wave-1. Installers > wishing to future proof new installations should consider pulling CAT-6a > cables <at least 1> and either another CAT6a or a CAT5e cable (this > allows you to fall back to 2 GbE ports) for some iterations of Wave-2 > and/or support 10GbE should this emerge as the method. 10GbE has some > challenges such as PoE standardization. Again, for the foreseeable > future, a single GbE is all that is needed." > > Plus Cisco appear to have announced multi-gigabit switches for Q2: > > http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/enterprise-networks/catalyst-multigigabit-switching/index.html > > > I usually hear from people to “Keep it all consistent and the same” and > > I remember in the old days if you mixed “G” in with “b-only” ap’s often > > clients would grab the “G” and never let go no matter how bad the signal > > got. I am thinking if I at least keep things in the same “family” of > > technology it should work out. > > I don't think there would be a problem mixing AP types within the same > technology, from the client point of view it'd just be another roaming > decision. There is more information about how clients decide to roam > now, eg http://support.apple.com/en-au/HT203068 and it seems to be > mostly RSSI based. So if you account for the smaller coverage provided > by the lower-end models (per the diagrams in the above Cisco document) > then there shouldn't be any problems. > > See also > > http://community.arubanetworks.com/aruba/attachments/aruba/WLAN-Pro-Conf-EU-2014/1/1/WLANPro_EU_MobileDevices%20v1.0-airheads.pdf > for more info on what handover is like now (thanks to powersaving) and > how it should be in an ideal world with 802.11k. > > > AP’s are a huge multiplier in a project cost and I was wondering if > > anyone else looked at approaching it this way. > > I have a similar challenge in that I'm going to be upgrading some of our > n APs to ac this year. In terms of reducing cost, we have a fairly dense > deployment and so I'm still wishing for APs with a single 802.11ac 5GHz > radio since I turn off a fair few of my 2.4Ghz radios already, and my > client base is 80% 5GHz. Since we're a K-12 1:1 iPad school, I can at > least predict where the ac clients are going to be as we go through our > 3 year refresh cycle. > > -- > James Andrewartha > Network & Projects Engineer > Christ Church Grammar School > Claremont, Western Australia > Ph. (08) 9442 1757 > Mob. 0424 160 877 > > ********** > Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent > Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. > -- Oliver Elliott Senior Network Specialist IT Services University of Bristol e: oliver.elli...@bristol.ac.uk t: 0117 39 (41131) ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
