Cisco 3502i vs. Ruckus 7962

rcoote5902_2 · ‎04-11-2011

Hello,

Our current wireless infrastructure is getting somewhat dated. We have 2 4404 WLC's and all of our AP's are 1131AG's. We have been investigating upgrading to 802.11n and have been courted by some non-Cisco vendors promising better performance etc. Ruckus was one vendor whom we'd heard good things about from other colleagues in the education sector. We have had issues with high-density (classrooms) areas with our 1131's and while obviously this is partially a limitation of 802.11g, we had heard that the Ruckus gear, even the 802.11g gear was outperforming Cisco.

So I got my hands on some of the new Cisco 3502i 802.11n radios with CleanAir, etc. and a trial controller and 7962 AP from Ruckus for a side by side comparison. The results have me somewhat stunned and I fear we are in jeopardy of having to forklift all of our Cisco wireless gear for new Ruckus kit.

Test setup:

In the same location I disabled all wireless in the building except for the one AP being tested. In both cases the AP's were at full power and a site survey was done using Ekahau Site Survey. The Ruckus AP has a much, much larger footprint.

My concern is that perhaps we aren't using the full potential of the new Cisco AP's or that they might be misconfigured. Are there any recommendations for optimizing these new 802.11n access points? I've read some of the papers on optimization for tablets/smartphones, etc. including disabling lower data rates, eliminating 802.11b devices, etc. but in a straigh-up spectrum analysis....I'm not sure how any of that would have an impact.

I've attached a couple of pictures of the survey results. Any comments are appreciated.

Rob

Nicolas Darchis · ‎04-12-2011

Few comments :

-Even if the Ruckus AP is heard much further (which is what is showing in your screenshots), the clients still have the same range. So the AP won't hear them back ... This is a point to consider

-If ruckus AP has a larger footprint and you have a high density environment : this is actually a drawback. If one AP covers a larger area it will share its bandwitdh between more clients and APs will interfere each other. High density means a lot of APs covering small areas to provide good bandwtidh.

-From a google search, the range difference could be explained by the fact that your ruckus is having 7db gain antennas while the 3500 has 3 or 4dbi gain antenna ( don't remember the number out of memory). Simply take a 3502e with 7db antennas and your coverage will be identical. Compare apples with apples please :-)

-The 3502 has the cleanair feature which is the ONLY access point on the market offering a hardware specrtum analyzer in each of yoru APs. Whatever Ruckus says, they can hardly beat that feature. If the feature is of no interest for you, take the 1140/1260 AP instead, it's cheaper and is the same AP without the cleanair chipset.

Hope this clarifies

Nicolas

rcoote5902_2 · ‎04-12-2011

ndarchis wrote:

-Even if the Ruckus AP is heard much further (which is what is showing in your screenshots), the clients still have the same range. So the AP won't hear them back ... This is a point to consider

-From a google search, the range difference could be explained by the fact that your ruckus is having 7db gain antennas while the 3500 has 3 or 4dbi gain antenna ( don't remember the number out of memory). Simply take a 3502e with 7db antennas and your coverage will be identical. Compare apples with apples please :-)

Very good points and my ignorance is exposed with respect to the antenna differences. This is exactly what I was looking for, thank you!

While I do see the cost difference as a positive with the 1140/1260 AP I am a bug fan of CleanAir...one of the reasons I am doing this research in the hopes of convincing the folks who hold the purse strings that it is worth the investment.

Nicolas Darchis · ‎04-12-2011

They supposedly have a beamforming feature working better than ours (ours is only for 11g clients btw, so we don't deny that).

But you should double check if their beamforming feature requires the client to do beamforming as well or if it works with 100% of clients.

Nicolas