WAP121 extremely slow

[zacmutrux]

A client contacted me for assistance with their wireless network. They had just purchased three WAP121 wireless access points and upon setting them up discovered the devices provided extremely slow access to the Internet. They have cable Internet service from Comcast and when attached to Ethernet or an older wireless router, speedtest.net shows download speed of 30Mbps. But when connected to any one of the three WAP121 devices they get less than 1 Mbps down.

Upon reviewing the settings with Cisco tier 1 support nothing seems amiss. The issue persists even when the AP is transported to another site. I am awaiting contact from tier 2.

Anyone else seeing this kind of behavior?

[Nagaraja Thanthry]

Hello Joerg,

It is sad to see that you are having issues with the WAP121 download speed. We will take this up with the Engineering to investigate the Wireless N implementation and see if we can find the root cause for the slowness. In the interim, could you please provide some additional details regarding your wireless environment i.e. the Channel you are using, the frequency band, Security etc? That will help us duplicate the issue in our lab and find the root cause.

Thanks,

Nagaraja

[Nagaraja Thanthry]

Hello Joerg,

To add to my earlier post, I tested the WAP121 in my home environment (with lot of AP's around me clogging up the channels). My download bandwidth was very close to what my ISP was providing (checked with a wired PC as well to ensure what I am getting is comparable). Did a download test with a remote FTP site and was seeing the same speed irrespective of if I am connecting to a WAP321 or a 121. One thing I noticed is that, when I used a channel that was heavily clogged due to adjacent AP's, my download went down by about 3 Mbps. Did not see much difference with TKIP or AES. I was just wondering about the surrounding AP's in your environment. Can you try a near clear channel and see if that makes any difference? You can use InSSIDer to scan your wireless environment and see the adjacent AP's and the channels they are using.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Nagaraja

[joergbachmayr]

Hello Nagaraja,

I use the default settings of the WAP121, reset your device completely and use the setup wizard only with next / next / next, no change in chanels / frequencies and no security!

Also I tested with nearly every combination of channels and frequencies (which are possible), but no change in the speed.

Only one change had an issue in testing: no security has about 0,9 to 1.1 Mbps, full encryption has about 0,3 to 0,5 Mbps.

And there is only one additional access point around, and this is - i think - channel 6 and nearly out of reach.

The problem isn't the wireless setting, the problem is the ISP connection or lets say the combination of the WAP121 and the router / ISP hardware.

If you read my postings above, I tested really intensive!

Within my environment, there is no higher speed possible, nor if I connect the WAP121 behind my cisco pix, neither if I connect it directly to the ISP router (and I checked this also with an cisco support employee within an online session on my site).

Both router-models I used / using are named above, but perhaps it is the hardware on the ISP site, not in my site (or the models are inside the same because the manufacturers are the same concern).

I have an ADSL+ with 30 Mbps down- and 4 Mbps upload.

On another ISP connection (I also tested on my brothers home) with 4 Mbps down- / 512 Kbps upload, the WAP121 had (nearly) full ISP speed.

As I also mentioned above, it seems like an MTU disharmony between the WAP121 and the router, but I cannot change the MTU on the WAP121 neither I can change it on my router, so ... deadlocked.

I also ordered an WAP321 yesterday and I am excited if the problem also exists with this device.

AND, which is also described above: some speedtests are affected, other not, so the issue depends on the used protocol, Level 3 I think (OSI).

Copied from above:

Also some http-speed-tests are at full speed, like

http://www.a1.net/hilfe-support/internet-speedtest

But other speed-tests are very slow:

http://www.speedtest.net/

And the normal http/downlaod speed is slow, ftp is like the a1.net speedtest at full speed!

As I said above: I tested very intensively, I think more than all cisco employees together.

Technically you / cisco have all information you need for solving this problem in this discussion.

The question is: what are you doing with it?

[joergbachmayr]

One additional note:

This problem cannot be fixed with configuration or testing, I am solving IT problems for 15 years, and this problem is within the firmware!

You need a firmware developer which is capable of the OSI-7 Layer model, not in wiki-level, but in expert level.

And he must understand MTU / package-sizing and so on, you need a network-guru for solving this problem.

This sounds hard, but within the cisco company, there should be more people like this ...

[Brian Bergin]

Please note I am not speaking on behalf of Cisco here. Take from it what you will. That being said:

You can most certainly set the MTU on PIX. The command is described here:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/pix/pix63/command/reference/mr.html#wp1171327

As for LAN speeds, the NIC on the WAP121 is the Cisco Small Business entry-level WAP and yes, it does have a 100Base-T LAN port vs. the gigabit port on the WAP321, which is a much more capable WAP. I have 321’s clustered at one customer that has dozens of clients connected to them without issue. While I agree that the 121 should work, few have really given full deployment scenarios here, including make/model/firmware of switches and/or the firewall in use nor how those devices are setup, which absolutely can influence how a downstream device, including a WAP, functions.

Also, for those of you using an ASA or PIX, have you hard-set your port speeds on the PIX? It’s recommended and best practice to hard set your device speeds on any Cisco firewall or router. While auto config is supposed to work if you use enough Cisco enterprise equipment you quickly learn to set the interface speed and disallow autoconfig. If you issue a sh int on your PIX do you see errors? Here’s the sh int from the outside interface of one of mine (note this is from an ASA5510 with 312 days of uptime so I’ll take 4009 input errors given the packets and bytes transferred, but if I set this to auto config I’ll have tens of thousands of errors in a few minutes. Also, this network is Cisco switch/firewall end to end and our uplink goes to a datacenter’s Cisco switch which is also hard set to 100/Full with an MTU of 1500.

Interface Ethernet0/0 "Outside", is up, line protocol is up

Hardware is i82546GB rev03, BW 100 Mbps, DLY 100 usec

     Full-Duplex(Full-duplex), 100 Mbps(100 Mbps)

     MAC address xxxx.xxxx.xxxx.xxxx, MTU 1500

     IP address x.x.x.x, subnet mask 255.255.254.0

     20750748945 packets input, 6605744713743 bytes, 13351 no buffer

     Received 39948182 broadcasts, 0 runts, 0 giants

     4009 input errors, 0 CRC, 0 frame, 4009 overrun, 0 ignored, 0 abort

     0 L2 decode drops

     17359618464 packets output, 6723786733706 bytes, 0 underruns

     0 output errors, 0 collisions, 0 interface resets

     0 babbles, 0 late collisions, 0 deferred

     0 lost carrier, 0 no carrier

     input queue (curr/max packets): hardware (0/33) software (0/0)

     output queue (curr/max packets): hardware (0/251) software (0/0)

Traffic Statistics for "Outside":

     20750739190 packets input, 6167201329060 bytes

     17359618464 packets output, 6385829024735 bytes

     462177925 packets dropped

     1 minute input rate 1109 pkts/sec, 279848 bytes/sec

     1 minute output rate 940 pkts/sec, 387726 bytes/sec

     1 minute drop rate, 5 pkts/sec

     5 minute input rate 1144 pkts/sec, 325908 bytes/sec

     5 minute output rate 997 pkts/sec, 436495 bytes/sec

     5 minute drop rate, 5 pkts/sec

You should hard set any switch (you are using a managed switch right?) and/or any firewall you have for your devices. We’re using ISA570W internally and there are no ports that are not hard set to their desired speed. The ASA above connects to a Cisco switch which also has every port set to its desired speed.

Finally, I have to question though why the combination of an enterprise firewall (even an outdated PIX) and the entry level small business WAP121? Seems to me the better combination would be an RV082 v3 or even the new ISA500W series. While I agree there should be no issue mixing the two devices, I doubt it’s a testing scenario that happened much and honestly the ISA500 series is much more capable in many regards to any PIX (except for the ability to use a block of IPs) and more capable for most small businesses than even an ASA and performs at least as well as an ASA-5505. If all you need is a single WAP, consider retiring the discontinued PIX and looking at a ISA570W and skip the WAP321 altogether. That way you get top-of-the-line security, antivirus, website filtering, malicious site detection, etc… in the firewall along with built-in wireless.

[joergbachmayr]

Hello Brian,

thank you for your fast answer,

but the PIX is not the problem!

I also connected the WAP121 directly on the isp-router with no change in the download speed (see my post on

27.08.2012 10:54).

Additional to the above summary: the upload is always fast, nearly by isp-speed, it's only the download affected.

I agree that the pix is not state of the art, but it is working for years - without problems - like cisco products are used to.

The problem ist the combination of the WAP121 and some type of isp-routers, and on these affected parts, I cannot change the MTU for being sure if it is the problem or not ...

regards

jm

[arnas.kavaliauskas]

Joerg, that's what i did. Today i'm returning WAP121 and getting WAP321. Hope it will solve this issue and also hope that there will be no isuues at all

The interesting thing about 121 is that LAN interface is only 100Mbps and wireless is "n" whick claims on 300Mbps How is that posssible?

[joergbachmayr]

Yes, this is a good question!

I also asked this a cisco support employee last year, and - I am in the IT since 1998, but I was not able to understand his answer

Lets say ... the wireless clients can talk together with 300 Mbps

[arnas.kavaliauskas]

No way!!! Really?

That is exactly i was expecting from this device. To be able to comunicate with other wifi devices in 300Mbps. Come on!!!

I'm so happy i'm getting almost twice more expensive 321...

[Matthew Ritchie]

Sorry for the late reply. But I did finally deploy these access points and updated them to the latest available firmware from Cisco. Its been a week or so since I did the job but the firmward I believe is 1.0.5.4 or higher.  In any event, the access points gained a new feature with the new firmware which is effectively turning them into WLAN Controllers in a cluster configuration.  This was extremely nice to have in these units.  I tested throughput, and received excellent results. I have 2 x Cisco SG200-26P switches and a Cisco 1941 router with 5 x WAP121 units installed in 9' dropped ceilings. Cat6 cabling run to each unit.  The units are powered from the switch via PoE, they are configured with Cisco Smartport roles of Access Point, they also provide DATA and GUEST vlan access very well. Using netcps and netstress for internal bandwidth tracking. I am getting about 90+ Mbps effective throughput over the wireless with 5 laptops running the test simultaneously. So I dont think there are issues with the 121s with new firmware.

[joergbachmayr]

Hi Matthew,

did you ever have this speed-issue?

[Matthew Ritchie]

I did. I wasnt getting the 1Mbps reported above, it would be intermittenet between 5Mbps+ downstream. I tried with mutliple laptops using different n adapters.  I reset to factory defaults, then did my firmware updates.  After which i went through the configurations I needed. Havent had a problem since.  If your units are not functioning right, it may be a faulty unit, there may have been a batch of units that could have been faulty, it happens in manufacturing, so its likely all who report it are those who bought that batch.

[joergbachmayr]

Hi Matthew,

I have the second unit of the same type ... could be the same batch, but:

I don't think so, because: on another office-location with another isp-connection (same provider, but other modem / speed / setup) the same unit works fine!

[Matthew Ritchie]

Wait...wait!

So you have a WAP121 that doesnt function properly in one network, but does function on another network.

Give me an idea how you have the WORKING and NON-WORKING networks laid out.

First things first, when you setup your wireless, make sure you are using WPA2, and dont use TKIP.

[joergbachmayr]

As you can read above: the issue is also present without any encryption!

The difference between the working and non-working environment:

working environment:

"normal" ADSL speed of the isp, 4 to 8 Mbps, "old" router (speedtouch II, the well known dinosaur ...)

non working environment:

business high speed ADSL (30 Mbps), state of the art router (manufacturer and model see above)

No difference on switch / firewall, I tried with and without these components.

The internal speed is good, the external speed depends on the protocol (see above): ftp is fast, http is slow.

So the combination with the router is the problem ...