Cisco 3802 dual A band external antenna load balancing

[Alex-Pr]

I have several 3802E and 3802P access points with the extra antenna adapter so I can run dual A band.  My goal of this is purely for density of users so the antennas point at the same coverage area.  My challenge is they don't do a good job of load balancing. I can have one antenna with 150 clients running at 70% channel utilization and the other with 3 clients at 10% utilization...   I try to avoid using aggressive load balancing because I am not convinced it doesn't create more problems then it solves.  I have manually set power levels so the two antennas match for their power (the channel will differ for power level).

Is there any best practice that people are following to get a better load balance for this situation?  my goal is to have the channel utilization stay within a good level and typically that is directly proportional to the number of clients it is serving.

Thank you,

Alex. 

[Leo Laohoo]

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@Alex-Pr wrote:

 I can have one antenna with 150 clients running at 70% channel utilization and the other with 3 clients at 10% utilization...   

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The wireless client makes the ultimate decision which AP it wants to join.  It also makes the decision which radio to choose. 

Wireless client drivers that haven't never been updated are the biggest cause of this sort of behaviour.  

If these are Windows-based laptops, I'd recommend going to the website of the wireless NIC manufacturer and downloading the latest drivers.  

[patoberli]

Check this:

https://community.cisco.com/t5/wireless-mobility-blogs/the-effect-of-enabled-probe-suppression-in-a-macro-micro-cell/ba-p/3810518

Probe Suppression might be the solution for your issue.