I gave some recommendations above for 12 and 18 mandatory.  Also for the most part the link I posted has some good advice and should answer the OP's questions. We can discuss 2.4GHz but the OP didn't share any requirements or details on the location's layout.  If I had to go with 2.4 I would have a serious talk with the people requesting the design to set expectations. What kind of devices? 1ss, 2ss, or 3ss? Mixed, what percent? I’d come up with an idea of how many APs would be needed to provide correct bandwidth. For mounting locations I’d use the direction from the link I posted. Depending on how many APs are needed would change how I would approach the design. Without knowing the layout it is hard for me to tell you what I’d do. I’d really try chop the cell size. Odds are even with aggressive AP placement the number required APs won’t be met. There is only so much you can do. Have I tested it? Yeah but we start to see problems around the 24 mark, we couldn’t make it to 54.  There are some hidden commands that tweak the power thresholds APs play nice at (Cisco doesn’t share these commands because they can be dangerous), Aruba calls them ear muffs for APs. I’d most likely turn those knobs also. If you survey with controllers can use the compensated heard value to help with AP placement. I am attaching a screenshot of some of density I have to work with. CCNP - Wireless CWNA and CWAP ... View more

Lets agree to disagree.   You can recommend 54 man rate but I won't.  If you have some supporting data from your implemented networks I'd would be interested in reviewing. CCNP - Wireless CWNA and CWAP ... View more

Changing it your man rate doesn't make your cell smaller.  It makes the area the clients can demodulation 802.11 frames smaller.  The RF energy still goes the same distance.  This a trick to bypass the 802.11 arbitration by means of tricking the virtual carrier protection mechanisms. The physical carrier protection is still in play. When you have overlapping physical cells without the virtual carrier protection you increase chances for collisions (evil retries) because the odds of two devices talking at the same time increases. The phy CCA will still do an energy detect and prevent transmissions also but threshold is a lot lower This will raises the noise floor because 802.11 devices don’t really know what RF noise is. They calculate their noise value based on corrupt 802.11 frames it can’t demodulate.  If you are using 5GHz this isn’t as bad but on 2.4GHz you’ll have CCI causing problems SNR and retires play a part in every vendors decision to rate shift down as well as the signal strength. If you cannot rate shift down from 54 you are going to drop. -60 on a heat map is great but it is only one side of the story. With BYOD devices I have seen up to 15db different in what the client sees the AP at and what the AP sees the client at. Even with the AP set to low power. For HD in an office area I would shoot for 5GHz coverage with more Aps (disable the 2.4 radios) man rates of 12 or 18 with no B rates. Of course this means your clients will need to be 5GHz. I’d have two SSIDs one labeled fast for 5GHz and one labeled slow for 2.4GHz. Depending on your clients and cell size I’d go with 40MHz channels also Here is a good read on HD http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/docs/education/cisco_wlan_design_guide.pdf Aruba and Aerohive have some HD guides also. CCNP - Wireless CWNA CWAP ... View more

man rate of 54 isn't going perform well.  You'll have to be super close to the AP with nothing in the way. CCNP - Wireless CWNA ... View more

   Web Server:    CLI: ok    Secure Web: Web Authentication Certificate not found (error). If you cannot access management interface via HTTPS please reconfigure Virtual Interface.    License Agent: ok (Cisco Controller) Welcome to the Cisco Wizard Configuration Tool Use the '-' character to backup Would you like to terminate autoinstall? [yes]: AUTO-INSTALL: starting now... rc = 0 AUTO-INSTALL: interface 'management' - setting DHCP siaddr ==> I am not seeing where to break the Wizard just the autoinstall.  Even if you hit "-" to go back. I have DHCP and TFTP running on the core switch.  I guess I 'll just let it autoinstall a base config with standard settings and then have the tech log in and paste in the different settings per controller. I was hoping to build configs that could just be pasted in.  This how I have configured Cisco gear for years.  I can't wait until IOS controllers become the normal.  I hate the CLI on these controllers. ... View more

And then kick the NCS??? ... View more

By break out I mean exit the wizard without going through it. ... View more

Thanks,  I got it figured out.  The 5508 was plugged up to a switch that was configured for lag (for the 5508 that was hooked up before).  I changed the port channel to put the native vlan on one that hands out DHCP.  The blank 5508 grabbed an ip but wasn't working.  I ended up disabling the other ports connecting to the 5508.  I defaulted the switchport that was connected to the 5508's SFP port 1 and put it in the right access vlan.  I was then able to ping the IP it grabbed and http in to it. thanks though! ... View more