The growth in the number of Wi-Fi devices accessing the network in concentrated areas, along with limitations in shared spectrum, requires a new approach to provide the best predictable and scalable user experience. The goal of this white paper is to provide the technical details behind Cisco’s unique approach to high-density Wi-Fi design, Cisco® High Density Experience (HDX), which offers both hardware and software innovation delivered in the Cisco Aironet® 2700 and 3700 Series access points.
With the emergence of smartphones, tablets, and laptops built for IEEE 802.11ac, which can use 80-MHz channel bandwidth, and more complex modulation and coding schemes, the challenges that result from rapidly increasing deployments of both Wi-Fi clients and Wi-Fi networks and the concurrent growing usage of shared spectrum become more acute.
This paper explores the underlying factors for high-density Wi-Fi scenarios and describes Cisco HDX. It also explains how this suite establishes a foundation and growth path for addressing and overcoming both the ongoing and imminent challenges of high-density Wi-Fi. Finally, this paper also discusses recent HDX enhancements that can be used to achieve higher levels of spectrum efficiency and end user performance.
