Aruba 515 poor wifi

[johbreaking]

At a loose end with my new Aruba system. Over the summer we took delivery of 15 access points to replace the 15 Ruckus ones that had been in the primary for over 8 years. All setup ok all talking back to the virtual controller and all seem to be working. Over the past week the amount of dead spots I have now found or places where I used to get full signal barley get 2 bars on an iphone is really worrying. I have power cycled all the AP's but now the school and SLT are getting irritated.

 

The school is an old building with solid brick walls but I am talking signal is non existent in the next room with a wall in between them and access point less than 4-5 metres away. How can this be possible when the old system worked so well!

 

Have i missed something on the config?

[Steve21]

Not that I have a solution yet, but funnily enough I was called to a local primary last week regarding similar issues

 

Unifi swapped to Aruba and now there are locations where even the opposite side of a wall has no signal anymore

 

Only thing I did wonder but need to have a look at is if there’s something silly with 2v5ghz bands, as to whether it’s trying to prioritise one that’s not working well compared to the previous etc (eg 5 now vs 2 previously?)

 

Be interested to know if you get any where as will check this one too

 

Steve

[tomviv]

5GHz band is not as powerful as 2GHz so although it’s faster it will not penetrate walls etc as well as 2GHz.

[RedwayNetworks_Niall]

Few initial things to look at tx power, channel width, the channels themselves (turning up the tx power can sometimes produce CCI) and PoE budget as I think these APs have some restrictions applied when using 802.3af.

Aside from the signal do you have any issues with roaming or speed when clients are connected?

[willtech]

Take a look at this: RF and Roaming Optimization for Aruba 802.11ac Networks

[psydii]

It wouldn't surprise me if 802.11ax cell size is smaller and more subject to attenuation than than that of a late-gen 802.11n access point. Can you disable ax and force the APs to ac/ng only? (probably achieved by disabling the MCS 10 and 11 data rates). Pushing all the radio chains at 1024QAM draws way more power than 802.11n radios, so it follows (well kinda, in my mind anyway) that you may get reduced range.

 

Also wasn't Ruckus' main selling point its (to paraphrase) magic aerials that allowed it use one AP when other vendors required two (or three)?

 

That said our 802.11ac Aruba network has 25% fewer aps than our previous (first-gen) 802.11n network, so YMMV.

 

Quick question - do you have your APs mounted on the ceiling or on a wall?