wireless issues meru

[maark]

Since the summer we have had problems with some rooms that have trolleys of 30 laptops and we struggling to get students logged on - some will logon quickly but others taking up to 30 minutes. Stuck at various points in processing policies and documents slow to load - seems to be throughput speed issue.

Only thing I think has changed is timetable and maybe some bigger classes.

Not changed anything on windows 10 and wired classrooms and other site with new fortinet wireless have no problems.

Seems to effect rooms at the front of the building that have thicker walls.

Tried so far with no joy:

swapping Dell and HP laptop trollies over

updating meru controller and aps to latest firmware

updating laptops bios and drivers to latest version

putting access point (meru AP832) directly in classroom

setting aps to use 2.4GHz instead of 5GHz - I can see some laptops now connecting to adjacent rooms but still slow logon

Meru was setup with 2 channels - channel 6 for 2.4GHz and 36 for 5GHz by capita.

A couple of queries

Should the AP in the room be able to cope with 30 laptops?

I have tried enabling ARRP on meru - this then allocates channels out to APs such as 1,6 13 etc. but then can't see how to add the ESS profiles on to each AP so had to reset back to original config on two channels?

Any help or advice appreciated as getting stick from SLT and fortinet/other support not coming up with any answers at the moment :-(

[wright-fi]

Yes that AP in the room should be able to cope with 30 laptops.

 

I think the issue here is that all the APs are on the same channel, Meru does support a single-channel architecture. While a single-channel architecture has its uses a School is not one of them, it just can't cope with the throughput and density that most Schools require today. Are you able to confirm that a single-channel architecture is in use?

 

Can I please ask how many wireless devices (roughly) are in use throughout the school? How many access points do you have in total?

 

If I am correct in the above I would recommend moving to a traditional multi-channel architecture. This would require re-designing your wireless network.

[maark]

Hi thanks for reply -the way it was setup was all 2.4GHz on channel 6 and all 5GHz on channel 36 - am just trying with 1,6,11 channels on 2.4GHz only for affected area to see if that helps

We have 57 access points on this site with about 48 in mian block covering three floors so it should be enough I think

[wright-fi]

Wow that is a lot of APs to use on a single channel architecture, I'm not surprised you're having issues. Can I also recommend changing the 5GHz channel in 1 classroom as most devices will likely default to the 5GHz frequency. Then you can monitor that classroom and see if your issue is fixed.