what happens with the clients that do not support 80 MHz channels if I change all the APs to work in 80 MHz

[Jonas2020]

Hello, everyone,

I'm about to do a channel migration on my Cisco WLC, model 5520 with version 8.8.120.0, and with APs 3802i, which have channel widths of 40 MHz and they ask me to change them to 80 MHz in order to obtain 1.3 Gbps.

My question is, what will happen with the clients that only support 40 MHz channels, it will be possible that they will continue to connect to the network with this channel width, or can only establish connections between the APs and the clients that support 80 MHz.

I appreciate very much for your support.

Regards

[Rafael E · Accepted solution]

Hello,

Clients that do not support 80Mhz they still can connect to the AP using the primary channel. That is the channel where all control and management frames are being sent. 

Be careful, when you want to archive 1.3Gbps that might be the data rate your client can negotiate with the AP but no necessarily the throughput you will archive. Remember wireless is half-duplex + will depend on how many clients are connected to that same AP + how much they try to use the medium (air)

I would not recommend a 80Mhz deployment for a dense environment 

Regards,

Rafael - TAC  

[Hilda Arteaga]

Thanks @Rafael E for helping @Jonas2020 on this matter

[Jonas2020]

Thank you very much to every one. I am very sure that with your help mi change will be done without failures.

Regards