White_Fi

Hi, You will need all the switches with APs connected to be aware of the VLANs and any uplink (trunks) between these switches. There are typically two types of VLAN mode (terminology varies between vendor), Trunk mode and Access mode. Access Mode - Native VLAN and carrying no other VLANs - The VLAN is Untagged on the port and any client that plugs in, lives in this VLAN. Trunk Mode (What you need for the AP ports on the switches) - Native VLAN and carrying other VLANs. The Native VLAN would be the Untagged VLAN. You would then Tag any other VLANs you need the AP to be aware of. For a basic example.. Our Wireless Mgmt VLAN is 80 and we have two WLANs, Net-Ctrl (VLAN 90) and Net-Ctrl Guest (VLAN 91) Our trunk/uplink ports from edge switches to core are in Trunk mode with these VLANs tagged. (carrying the VLANs) Our AP switch ports are also set as Trunk mode with Untagged 80 (the default native VLAN i want the AP to live) and Tagged on 90 and 91. In the ZD you DO NOT need to tag VLAN 80 for AP management because you have the port setup with Untagged (native) VLAN80on the switch...no need to be putting a VLAN tag flag in the frame.... it is the native VLAN so leave that as 1. Under the WLANs advanced options you tag VLAN 90 or 91. **** If you want you can also tag 80 aswell 90 and 91 on the switch port instead of UT80, T90/91.... If this was the case you WOULD need to "Tag" VLAN 80 for the AP management port in the ZD.

To improve shared medium systems such as WiFi you need to get that client on and off the link as fast as possible and move onto the next client. The faster you can do that the less likely of a collision. It's a probability game and higher data rates vastly reduce the chance of collision. 802.11ac is a big game changer for this and the chances are SCA, regardless of SCA MAC alteration techniques being used, will working better once a greenfield VHT environment is achieved (years away from that). Adaptive antenna array (Ruckus BeamFlex) is all about providing a better SNR to the client.. The better the SNR the better the clients data rate.. in a nutshell. 802.11n and 802.11ac Chipbased beamforming (TxBF) requires that the multiple streams of data be exactly the same... Great.. But now you cant do spatial multiplexing whilst TxBF is going on.. So that 3x3:3 laptop we are all specking is now using only a single stream rather that its SS capabilities. Since Ruckus "Form" shapes of RF energy a positive way for all clients at the antenna level they are able to achieve spatial multiplexing and "Beamforming" at the same time. All vendors have great bells and whistles but Ruckus, to my knowledge, are the only guys in the marketing taking that chipmakers reference design and throwing it in the bin then saying "Let's make our own antennas and not follow this design guide... We are an antenna company and our WiFi rocks!" The results have show some pretty awesome WiFi wold wide. The video on beamforming above is well worth a watch to clarify on the underlying technologies.

Just another point, each mesh hop will use ~50% of the bandwidth and no more than 4 hops is recommend. The 7982 APs have 3x3:3 radio chains - the maximum data rate on the mesh is 450Mbps and will be cut in half on each MESH hop. For example a station at the end of a single mesh hop will see (in best conditions) ~225Mbps of bandwidth. Actual throughput will be lower due to 802.11 overheads.

Hi, Just a couple of corrections if I may. Depending on the firmware running on the ZD (9.4 and up) you can disable MESH on a per AP basis. The APs must match radios: so a 7363 (Dual Band) can MESH with a 7372 (Dual Band) but not a 2942 (2.4GHz only) DualBand APs will MESH using their 5GHz radio for a cleaner link with potential higher throughput but of course 5GHz is more prone to attenuation. The 5GHz radio will not be disabled for clients access. Clients will be able to continue using the APs 2.4GHz and/or 5GHz radio regardless of the MESH status. Thanks

Any of the Ruckus beamflex APs. The APs in the bundle are the 7372 and 7982 APs. The 7372 is a 2x2:2 radio chain and with a Max data rate of 300Mbps and the 7982 a 3x3:3 with 450Mbps Max data rate.

Hi, although single stream devices are only ever going to get about 40-50Mbps throughput its about maintaining that clients highest data rate that improves capacity on the AP. So the right AP does matter... A lot! If I have 50 iPads connected to an off the shelf AP from PC World the AP is going to be having a bad time. It's not mitigating interference by changing antenna elements to create directional RF, its not flipping the signal polarity to match that of the clients antenna orientation..There's no PD-MRC.... It's dong nothing clever in the air to provide the best RF pattern (==best performing data rate) to the client! The clients are spending most of their time in contention waiting for the iPad that is talking to the AP at sub 10Mbps to get of the channel.... The result is everyone's aggregated throughput drops. Get that client on and off the link as fast as possible and you increase reliability and performance for ALL clients. How??? Use some very good APs.

Hi Andrew, Are you looking to provide wireless access across 800m stretch or to an areas that is ~800m from a building? If it is to provide coverage locally to an area 800m from the building then an option (using mostly existing kit) is to use directional antennas and create a MESH (WDS) link between two APs. There are mainly out of the box solutions that would do the job nicely too. Ruckus have a PtP solution, the 7731, that comes as a pair. Its a transparent layer two bridge. One AP at each location.

Hi, when it comes to Android it depends what Android OS is being used and if the phone manufacture has done anything to the OS... e.g Samsung and their touchwiz (some galaxy versions) get a 404 error after logging into the captive portal. What code is your ZD running? Attached is the 9.6.1.0.15 Zero-IT supported list.... If it is not supported you could always view the dynamic key manually and enter it into the device... If you have an issue viewing the key manually on the device you can generate a key using a laptop then view the key and manually enter it on the device.. ---Once a user has authenticated on the Zero-IT Captive Portal a blank MAC address entry is created on the ZD with that key... Once that key has been used for the first time it is then bound to the MAC address of the device using it.

Hi Matthew, it's hard to tell but for more coverage you will need a higher gain antenna. With that said just because the AP can go a little further doesn't necessarily mean your clients will work at that new extended distance. Small radios like those round in smart phones don't really have the battery power to shout back at the AP. I have Ruckus in my place (not really your average SOHO AP) but with their smart antenna system 1 covers the hole place (And to the pub if i get a seat near a certain window) Two APs, however, should be more than enough. Your best bet is to do your own mini survey, looking at the RSSI and doing actual throughput tests.

Yes but channel 6 and 9 overlap by about 5MHz. There are 3 non-overlapping channels in the 2.4GHz band. They are 1, 6 and 11. If the APs are on adjacent channels i.e 6 and 9 then there is a possibility there will be collisions in the air and re-transmission rates will be higher than usual with the end results being reduced data rates. It is unlikely to be the cause of the issue here however only channels 1, 6 and 11 should be used (Unless you have Ruckus with channel fly on and clients support 802.11h - that's a different story) - Just noticed this and thought I'd advise IEEE 802.11 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Just on a quick note, if those APs "close" i would move the AP on CH9 to CH11... 6 and 9 have some overlap and could cause adjacent channel interference

Sure PM me your details

Great post. I hope you don't mind me pointing a few individuals to this page. Repeating myself can give me a head ache. - Brilliant.

Yeah I'm pretty sure I heard something along the lines of the Smoothwall box pulling information (IP / Username / MAC address) from a RADIUS accounting server(does not need to be an 802.1x authenticated WLAN) and using them to authenticate the user. Either that or the Smoothwall actually does the RADIUS accounting too. There is a way. Glad you love your Ruckus. You'd be barking mad not to!

Yes that is what concerns me. Great if there is no other sources of interference but in a noisy RF environment and other APs that are not playing by the MERU rules are surely going to cause co-channel interference. CDMA/CA - only one STA or AP can talk at once. STA1 is talking to MERU AP1 on channel 11... but a BSS (not MERU) near by is also talking on that channel. The contention increases and clients need to wait longer to speak. Or lets say that the non MERU BSS is a hidden node and STA1 cant hear it but MERU AP1 can... then you have collisions and re-transmissions.

Your neighbours may well be affecting you. WiFi is a shared medium.. If your neighbouring APs are causing co-channel interference you are likely to have a higher re-transmission rate which sucks for Voice over WiFi. Check the air for the best channel to use (cleanest channel with fewest APs and minimum Air utilization), is this 2.4 or 5GHz that your APs are on and is the meru configured for SCA (i guess it is since you are using voice)? thanks sw

Nice tool! I'm not promising 100 clients per AP (though ruckus docs do "big up" up to 500 clients per AP on the new 3x3:3 APs --- SILLY NUMBERS), I'm merely saying that 100 clients per AP is possible... I've done it many times. Not always going to be neat, infact most cases it will actually be quite nasty and I would never "recommend" it in an educational environment. However.. It can be done.

<10m with no walls?? Because your android device with inSSider can't see then doesn't mean the RF propagation has stopped... AP radios are a lot more sensitive

I'm not vendor dropping here however I have seen a little over 100 clients connected to a 7982 Ruckus Access point (On a number of sites, large school campus / events etc). Mixed clients around 45 on the 2.4GHz and 60 on the 5GHz. When you have an advantage over the noise and manage the RF better than others you can get pretty dense on single APs.

I'm not sure which part is "incorrect" Mark?

Is this 100 on a single Radio or mixed bands across the 2.4 and 5 GHz radio? 100 clients is quiet a lot but no impossible (though most vendors do struggle). The RF environment the APs and clients are in will have a big impact on client performance and therefore the amount of clients able to connect. The 5GHz is going to be pretty clean (in most cost cases) where as the 2.4GHz is likely to suffer from various 802.11 and non 802.11 interference. If the APs are too close then you are going to (especially with MERU) co-channel interference. When you have interference you will have corrupt packets. When the packet is corrupt or doesn't reach the client or AP there is no ACK (WiFi is CDMA/CA .. there is always an ACK)... when there is no ACK the AP and clients drop there data rate as the lower the data rate the more "reliable" the transmission will become... then end of it all is the lower the data rate the slow the wifi and longer clients needs to wait around for their AirTime... Managing the and planning for proper RF deployment is key to a well performing Wireless network especially when you want 100 clients per AP (regardless of mixed band) Are you using the Single Cell feature on the MERU system? Or are all the APs on different channels to one another (with some overlap)?

If it doesn't these guys are pretty good, they run a little DHCP server and NAT your traffic over the bridged WLAN connection: TL-WA850RE - Welcome to TP-LINK Single RJ-45 on the bottom.

Wow!!! Fiddler.... how did I not know about this!!! Thanks Neil

I would first start with a spectrum analysis of the areas affected. looking for any patterns in time of day the issue occurs perhaps? I would also get some sniffing going and to make it easier to analyse use Eye. P.A from metageek (believe it is still a 30day trial) Dirty way to get a wifi card into monitor mode: 1)Get some flavour of debian (other disto;s are available ) running. 2)apt-get install aircrack-ng 3)airmon-ng start e.g airmon-ng start wlan0 4)airodump-ng mon0 -c -w This will let you know form a protocol level what is going on. Dos_Box is right about the .11b guys. The worse part is the b client doesn't even need to associate to the WLAN. The AP just needs to hear it's probe request to enable the protection mode in its own beacon... Then the AP next to it hears the beacon from the original AP... It detects the non ERP client protection mode and enables the same flag... the ripple continues.

Hi Guys, Roaming can be one of the biggest headaches in WiFi.. Why.... Until 802.11v is implemented in end devices all clients decisions are down the the client and the client alone. Different vendors implement different variables and variable readings to trigger a roam such as: RSSI, SnR, Data Rates etc. There are things you can do to make an AP look more or less attractive to a client to enforce (or not) a roam. SYNAK is correct.. get stable drivers (not always the latest) on the devices and play with the roaming aggressiveness (not available on all drivers). After that use a simple tool such as inSSider (metageek.net) to look at what the RSSI is from the two APs in the clients location. If the client is seeing two APs at lets say -65db and aggressively roaming it would be advisable to re-locate on of the APs to create more attenuation from the AP to the client (reduce the signal strength) It is not always advisable to just lower the Tx Power.... When you reduce the APs Tx Power you are actually reducing the Max Data Rate the AP can support with the client and not just decreasing the coverage space.