Broadcast over WiFi

[sasha]

Hi. We need to enable a custom application that uses a lot of broadcast to work over a WiFi network. With current settings, lots of packets are dropped. I suppose that happens because broadcast is sent over WiFi on basic rate. Access points are Aironet 1850 with ME. All clients are in the same room as their AP. There are no wired computers in the network, just wireless ones. I think all of the clients use 802.11ac.

We have an idea to set basic rate to be as high as possible - would that help and can that be set on ME and/or 1850? Is there any parameter that controls how an AP and/or ME treats broadcast, which would help with this? Thanks and best regards.

[Rich R]

Opinions might vary but my instinctive response is don't do it - get the application rewritten or don't use it on WiFi at all.

Multicast can be tolerated for some specific applications but using broadcast as if you're on a LAN is just going to cause problems sooner or later even if you optimise the data rates.

It sounds like a badly designed application and the obvious solution to that is to redesign the app ...

[patoberli]

Here you go:
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/wireless/mobility-express/212523-configure-rrm-parameters-on-cisco-mobili.html
Mandatory data rate - config{802.11a | 802.11b} rate mandatory channel_number
Supported data rate - config{802.11a | 802.11b} rate supported channel_number

And from another guide the explanation:
Wireless=>802.11a/802.11b=>Network
Network - Data Rates
● Mandatory = Client must support in order to associate
● Supported = Optional: client may rate shift to this rate if desired
● Disabled = Not supported on the radio
Recommendations: Set the minimum acceptable data rate for the cell as supported. Choose a higher data rate as the target client speed and set as mandatory. The first or lowest mandatory rate is the speed at which beacons will be sent. The highest mandatory rate is the speed at which multicast will be broadcast. The design for a high‑density WLAN should use a minimum mandatory data rate of 18 or 24 Mbps.