Wireless Access

Our network is a mix of AP-215, AP-315, AP-335, AP-515, and AP-635; we are in the process of upgrading the older 2XX deployments to AP-635.

2.4 overlap has been an issue for a long time, as adequate 5GHz density (and now 6GHz density) puts too many 2.4GHz radios to avoid multiple APs in each of the three channels in each area.

Aruba 6 had an automatic solution that turned off some 2.4 radios, but it was dropped from Aruba 8, presumably because it didn't actually work very well.

Ekahau and other design tools suggest which 2.4 radios to disable, but I am not sure the easiest or best way to do it:

One solution is to split each existing AP group in to two, one of which has 2.4 disabled, and then assign all the APs to one of the groups.

Alternatively, it could be applied on an a per AP basis, using the "Per AP Override"

Both options seem annoying to manage: either I have twice as many groups, or, I have a bunch of obscure and hard to maintain individual config. How do you handle this?

(Obviously, the third option is just to leave all the 2.4 radios on, and have lots of CCI in 2.4. This is actually what I have been doing, but it doesn't seem ideal)

------------------------------
Steve Bohrer
IT Infrastructure, Emerson College
------------------------------

Further turning down your 2.4GHz power levels may work as well.

I would go for the ap-group approach, because as you mention per-ap exceptions are hard to handle and error-prone.

------------------------------
Herman Robers
------------------------
If you have urgent issues, always contact your Aruba partner, distributor, or Aruba TAC Support. Check https://www.arubanetworks.com/support-services/contact-support/ for how to contact Aruba TAC. Any opinions expressed here are solely my own and not necessarily that of Hewlett Packard Enterprise or Aruba Networks.

In case your problem is solved, please invest the time to post a follow-up with the information on how you solved it. Others can benefit from that.
------------------------------

Thanks, what power levels do you actually use? I have two different RF Management > 2.4 GHz Radio Profiles:

• a "low power" one for dense areas, with min/max EIRP limits of 3 and 9;
• a "med power" with min/max of 6 and 12.

(I'd read once not to set more than a 6 dBm range, but not sure if that still holds.)

We set the low power profile in dense areas, and the medium profile in less-dense areas.

With those settings, the lowest 2.4 EIRP shown in our "Radios" table is 4dBm, and only a few APs have that setting. Many are at 9dBm, which I take it as meaning the system might turn them up higher if it could, but they are at the limit. 

Also, a ton of our 2.4 radios show more than 50% Rx channel busy

------------------------------
Steve Bohrer
IT Infrastructure, Emerson College
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Jul 15, 2024 07:50 AM
From: Herman Robers
Subject: How do you disable selected 2.4GHz radios?

Further turning down your 2.4GHz power levels may work as well.

I would go for the ap-group approach, because as you mention per-ap exceptions are hard to handle and error-prone.

------------------------------
Herman Robers
------------------------
If you have urgent issues, always contact your Aruba partner, distributor, or Aruba TAC Support. Check https://www.arubanetworks.com/support-services/contact-support/ for how to contact Aruba TAC. Any opinions expressed here are solely my own and not necessarily that of Hewlett Packard Enterprise or Aruba Networks.

In case your problem is solved, please invest the time to post a follow-up with the information on how you solved it. Others can benefit from that.
------------------------------

It's really hard to provide good guidance without understanding the environment, having floorplans/heatmaps and analyzing the RF data from the controllers.

In many deployments the 2.4 GHz band is considered 'garbage' or 'best-effort', focus is on good performance on 5 and 6 GHz. On the 6 dB power-range, I think it's good to give radiomanagement some freedom, but not too much, but that also depends on the distance between APs, if they are evenly distributed or not, and even then it may not be worth spending too much time on it. This may be something to look at in more detail with a wifi professional.

------------------------------
Herman Robers
------------------------
If you have urgent issues, always contact your Aruba partner, distributor, or Aruba TAC Support. Check https://www.arubanetworks.com/support-services/contact-support/ for how to contact Aruba TAC. Any opinions expressed here are solely my own and not necessarily that of Hewlett Packard Enterprise or Aruba Networks.

In case your problem is solved, please invest the time to post a follow-up with the information on how you solved it. Others can benefit from that.
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Jul 15, 2024 10:07 AM
From: skbohrer
Subject: How do you disable selected 2.4GHz radios?

Thanks, what power levels do you actually use? I have two different RF Management > 2.4 GHz Radio Profiles:

• a "low power" one for dense areas, with min/max EIRP limits of 3 and 9;
• a "med power" with min/max of 6 and 12.

(I'd read once not to set more than a 6 dBm range, but not sure if that still holds.)

We set the low power profile in dense areas, and the medium profile in less-dense areas.

With those settings, the lowest 2.4 EIRP shown in our "Radios" table is 4dBm, and only a few APs have that setting. Many are at 9dBm, which I take it as meaning the system might turn them up higher if it could, but they are at the limit. 

Also, a ton of our 2.4 radios show more than 50% Rx channel busy

------------------------------
Steve Bohrer
IT Infrastructure, Emerson College
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: Jul 15, 2024 07:50 AM
From: Herman Robers
Subject: How do you disable selected 2.4GHz radios?

Further turning down your 2.4GHz power levels may work as well.

I would go for the ap-group approach, because as you mention per-ap exceptions are hard to handle and error-prone.

------------------------------
Herman Robers
------------------------
If you have urgent issues, always contact your Aruba partner, distributor, or Aruba TAC Support. Check https://www.arubanetworks.com/support-services/contact-support/ for how to contact Aruba TAC. Any opinions expressed here are solely my own and not necessarily that of Hewlett Packard Enterprise or Aruba Networks.

In case your problem is solved, please invest the time to post a follow-up with the information on how you solved it. Others can benefit from that.

We have an  lighting system that was causing havoc with 2.4Ghz (not WiFi, some propriety protocol) in an area. We just created AP group and put the 2.4 radio in monitor mode. That effectively disabled it for clients. It solved our issue.