topic Increasing Wireless Bandwidth in Wireless

Increasing Wireless Bandwidth

aoyawale — Sat, 03 Jul 2021 23:10:30 GMT

Hi,

I'm looking to combine three 54Mbps Wireless radios to increase wireless bandwidth, load balancing and redundancy. My intention was to create an etherchannel using the connected Cisco 2960 switch ports but I have read this is not a recommended solution. Could anyone provide details of a recommended solution and the required devices? Thanks in advance for your help.

Re: Increasing Wireless Bandwidth

Richard Atkin — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 10:42:29 GMT

If you're in a L2 scenario with lots of VLANs, then you can setup your three bridges and push different VLANs over different bridges - it's crude but it works. Obviously you'll need to run spanning tree!

If you want to do this properly though, you should be using 2.4GHz & 5GHz, not just one or the other.

Failing that, you could use other more dedicated equipment like Laser Links, or go to a manufacturer that specialises in high-capacity / high-reliability bridge links, as this kind of thing isn't really on Cisco's current portfolio.

Re: Increasing Wireless Bandwidth

aoyawale — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:07:18 GMT

RikJonAtk,

Thanks for your response and suggestion. I'm using 2 2.4Ghz radio. The requirement is to provide abt 80Mbps link for synchronisation traffic between 2 servers in the same vlan but in 2 different locations. I was thinking of bundling the 3 bridges into an etherchannel on the switch but another option is to use layer3 switch e.g 3750 and configure EIGRP for equal load balancing across the 3 wireless links. I've not tried this before so I'm seeking opinions on the forum.

Re: Increasing Wireless Bandwidth

Richard Atkin — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:19:37 GMT

The L3 option is best, as you know the EtherChannel method isn't actually supported, whereas using them as parallel routed links certainly is.

Your next problem is that even if your APs run at "54Mbps" then you'll only see about 20Mbps throughput (half-duplex) for each radio, so if your requirement is 80Mbps, you'll realistically need four or five radios by the time you account for unreliability of wireless, additional over heads, etc..

Re: Increasing Wireless Bandwidth

aoyawale — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:31:43 GMT

The problem I have with the L3 option is that both servers (in different locations) are in the same subnet so routing is not possible except I move them to different subnets/vlan. Pls why do I have to run the radios in half-duplex and not full-duplex node?

Re: Increasing Wireless Bandwidth

Richard Atkin — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:16:47 GMT

Because the radios only work half duplex 🐵

Re: Increasing Wireless Bandwidth

aoyawale — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:41:20 GMT

Oops...my bad!!!! The specs of the radio says its capable of "Super G" transmission rate of up to 108MBps so 3 radios should give the required 80Mbps at the minimum.

Re: Increasing Wireless Bandwidth

Scott Fella — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:50:52 GMT

With etherchannel, you are still dedicated to one link, depending on how you configure the load-balancing on the etherchannel. Your best bet is to get an outdoor bridge that can give you the bandwidth you need in one link.

Re: Increasing Wireless Bandwidth

ericgarnel — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:34:34 GMT

Unlicensed microwave. http://www.commconnect.com/microwave-bridges.shtml

We set up a 100Mbps bridge a while back using some old units, now they have them up to 1.25 Gbps.

Supports vlan trunking just fine

Re: Increasing Wireless Bandwidth

ROBERTO TACCON — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:51:34 GMT

Please can you tell me why "the EtherChannel method isn't actually supported" ?

Regards

Roberto Taccon

Re: Increasing Wireless Bandwidth

aoyawale — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:00:03 GMT

r.taccon,

pls see below for response to your question

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/wireless/ps5279/products_tech_note09186a0080736199.shtml