Wireless Access

Is there a recommended starting point for the AP515 transmit power when used 1to1 in classrooms?  We are only using 5GHz and I have AirMatch turned on with the default radio profile set to 15-21.

I am seeing clients roaming to neighboring APs, through cinder block walls, so I'm assuming it's turned up too high. The problem rooms today were at 18dBm. Classrooms are probably roughly 20ftx20ft with the AP ceiling mounted in the center.

You could try 9-15 or 12-15 if you want a smaller range. 

We also suggest trimming basic rates used for management frames. If you've got a dense deployment, forcing the beacons to go out at 24 Mbps rather than the default 6 Mbps in 5 GHz, should help keep clients attached to APs inside the classrooms.

You mentioned that you see clients "roaming to adjacent rooms", and the suggestions you got are all good ones. In our dense classroom buildings we have our min/max EIRP at 12-18. (But, our walls are sheetrock more than cinderblock, so of course, "it depends")

But also double-check that the clients you are seeing are "roaming" rather than "sticking". Current MacOSes seem to us much worse than a few years back, in terms of hanging on to their previous AP even when the user moves fairly far way, eg when staff users go from their office to a conference room, and their Macbook stays on the office AP with a RSSI of -72 rather than roaming to the conference room AP with -54. Similar when students change classes and move to a room down the hall from where they were before. 

Not sure if there is a setting to drop or disallow these weak distant connections. We've been telling Apple users to turn their wifi off and on again when they they get to a new location, but very probably there is a better fix.