Outdoor Access Point Coverage Area

[MarwanHarb5603]

Hi, I want to design a WiFi system for an outdoor large area (10000000 sqm) which can take up to (5000000 people) in which the active users from my operator are around (400000 people) distributed homogeneous around the area. My question is how much area can be covered by a single outdoor AP? I know for indoor a single AP can cover around (150 - 300 sqm) based on the type of the building but I have no experience in outdoor, also how many users can be connected to a single outdoor AP? for indoor we usually serve between (30-50 users) depending on the customer requested throughput(2-8Mpbs), however for such outdoor environment (0.5-1Mpbs) would be acceptable.      

[Martin Carr]

A number of factors would influence the coverage that would be achievable, however the indoor ones are omni beam (so the waves are distributed 360 degrees) in an outdoor environment, you would typically  require a model with an external, directional antenna.

Martin

[Haydn Andrews]

number of considerations you need to take into account. Whats the line of site, attenuation, mounting locations, powering AP options.

Your also saying 5 million people even probing devices of that number? how many are really going to be connected, I have done very large outdoor coverage, like a small city and never seen 400,000 connected users, this is not only going to have to take into consideration the APs, but the back end side, WLC, bandwidth etc. 400,000 users connecting they wanting 2-8 Mpbs thats 800,000-3,200,000 Mbps connection. 

[Jurgens L]

You will really need to understand your environment as elements such as trees and building can have a major impact on your AP quantity. You will have to go and do an AP on a stick surveys to get a better understanding of how the RF will react in the environment you want to deploy.
I've done surveys around sports fields and could get 800m diameter out of a Cisco 1570 with 8dbi Omni antennas, but if I've gone into a suburb that has trees all over the place I can forget of getting the same result.
There are a lot of things you will need to consider when designing for a mesh, I would recommend (if not already) go through the mesh design guide:
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/8-5/Enterprise-Mobility-8-5-Design-Guide/Enterprise_Mobility_8-5_Deployment_Guide/Chapter-8.html

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[Leo Laohoo]

Get a wireless site survey done.