CleanAir to Non-CleanAir Deployment Ratio

[ctcahoe]

I've seen some very mixed signals in the documentation and forums about deploying CleanAir with existing 1140's and 1250's. I'm curious if anyone has started going back and supplementing coverage with 3500's, where you've already deployed 1140's and 1250's. We just got done replacing about 400 1231's with 3500's over the summer, but I'd like to go back in some of the buildings we've already converted to 802.11n and mix in CleanAir to detect non-WiFi interferers. After reviewing some floor plans, I think a 3:1 or 2:1 ratio of non-CleanAir to CleanAir would give us good interference detection, but I'm curious if anyone else has gone down this path already. These 3500's would be installed to serve clients as well, so I'm aware they will only be detecting interference on the channel they're serving clients with.

Thanks,

Chris  CCNP/CCDP

[Stephen Rodriguez]

Chris,

     that should work, probabably the 3:1.  You've already stated the one caveat that I would have pointed out, that being the mixing of the technologies.

Keep in mind as well, that the MSE will greatly help you with identifing interferes, as it will build one psuedo-mac for an interferrer, where the WLC will show you one for each detection.  So if 3 AP see the interferrer, you'll have 3 psuedo-mac, vs just the one if you have the MSe.

Also, don't forget that you can put the AP into Spectrum Connect mode, and use Spectrum Expert to connect and survey a given area, if you are seeing unusual activity.

HTH,
Steve

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[George Stefanick]

We have 1 location that is 100% Clean Air and we have 1 location that is "mixed". Two items I would like to mention:

The antennas on the 1140 and 3500 are identical. HOWEVER the RF partterns are slightly different. If your deisgn was at 12.5mW or 25mW a direct replacement from 1140 to 3500 should be ok.

The bigger impact is EDRRM. If you salt and pepper 3500s in a non clean air enviroment EDRRM (which is Event Drive RRM) will not be as robust. In fact I last heard it should be disabled in salt and pepper enviroments.

EDRRM uses clean air data to make radio decisions.

Make sense?

[ctcahoe]

Our standard deployment model at the moment is based on 5GHz 802.11n coverage. With the goal being 100% 5GHz coverage with the radios operating at 17mw and then the 2.4GHz radios providing overlap in case of an AP failure. This seems to be working pretty good for us. We then go back and analyze capacity and determine where micro-cells are needed for lecture halls and athletic facilities.

Yeah, I understand EDRRM is a big part of the 3500's functionality, but I'm willing to sacrifice it for the interferrence detection and Spectrum Expert capabilities spread out across more locations.

[ctcahoe]

Thanks, I didn't know that about the MSE. We've honestly stayed away from WCS for mapping, but the MSE and CleanAir might make it useful for us again. We use a different vendor for wireless monitoring and mapping functionality. I haven't found a rogue mapping or reporting software that I've liked yet.

[George Stefanick]

Attached is what an MSE and WCS look like with interefence devices. You wll see it tracks each devices and it will hold this info for 1 year . You can also do history as well.