1550 Outdoor Access Point / Voice vs Video?

[rcarricato]

Hi folks,

I know that these APs were just released within the last two weeks, however, I am already thinking about selling them to my customers. My questions stem from the "at a glance" document available on Cisco's site. It lists "video conferencing" under the section for "Optimized for High Bandwidth Applications".

This makes me question if voice is also supported since video conferencing is voice embedded into video (which takes up more bandwidth than voice alone).

The last I heard, all 1500 series APs are not supported with voice (via the 7921/7925 deployment guide), however, I am not sure if voice will now be supported with the 1550 series.

Does anyone know?

If you have an answer, do you have documentation to prove this?

If Voice is not supported on the 1550's what hardware/software is missing to make these devices capable of running VoWLAN networks over them?

[Nicolas Darchis]

The thing is that the WLC and 1520/1550 series support voice QoS tagging since WLC release 5.2 with some improvements over time in each release. The maximum supported is still 2 hops mesh for voice clients I believe. I don't have the update for the 1550.

The 7921/25 deployment guides were written some time ago and their testing didn't include testing over mesh, that's why support is not being mentioned. However, if 3rd party voice clients are supported behind mesh, then obviously the cisco phones will also be supported :-)

Nicolas

[rcarricato]

Thanks Nicolas,

I have heard of voice being supported only via 2 hops before from someone from Cisco, however, I have not been able to find documenation that shows that the 1500 series or specifically the 1550 is supported for voice fully. For example the 7.0 configuration guide (June 2010) lists that only indoor mesh is supported with voice. Sorry I am focusing so much on documentation, however, I want to make sure that I am following Cisco's best practices because we have installed 1522 mesh access points in the past and had to rip them out because they were not operating to the customer's liking. We ended up replacing all 1522's with 1242's with NEMA enclosures.....they have been working fine since then. The customer was on version 5.2.193.0 BTW.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/wireless/controller/7.0/configuration/guide/c70mesh.html

Guidelines for Using Voice on the Mesh Network

• Follow these guidelines when using voice on the mesh network:
  • Voice is only supported on indoor mesh access points, 1130 and 1240
  • When voice is operating on a mesh network, calls must not traverse more than two hops. You must configure each sector to require no more than two hops for voice

I also found the following in the 1500 Series Wireless Mesh AP Version 5.0 Design Guide (February 2009) which is my main concern and reason for questioning whether the 1550 has CAC on backhaul. If they do not, then I do not know if I want to risk installing them:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/partner/docs/wireless/technology/mesh/design/guide/MeshAP.html#wp1024890

Voice

The 1500 Series Mesh AP is 802.11e capable, and QoS is supported on the local 2.4 GHz access and for the 5 GHz/4.9 GHz backhaul. Although we have Call Admission Control (CAC) in CCXv4 clients (which provides CAC between AP and the client), real voice support will come only when we can have CAC on the backhaul too. Therefore, voice calls across 1500 Series Mesh APs are not currently fully supported. However, testing shows that it takes numerous voice calls to saturate the mesh network.

[Michael Ciulei]

Hi rcarricato,

I found your post while browsing for an outdoor wireless solution for voice.

Have you managed to find if voice is supported onto 1550 mesh access points?

If not, what other options are available besides 1300 APs running in 2.4 GHz?

Thanks,

Michael

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPhone App

[rcarricato]

Michael,

Unforutunatly the caveats with outdoor mesh and voice still apply I believe. I checked the latest Mesh design guide as well as the WLC 7.2 Configuration guide. It says that voice is still "best-effort" on outdoor mesh. Looks like 1242's with NEMA enclosures still seem to be the way to go if you need good quality VoWLAN.

However.....the latest 7.2 Mesh Design Guide has the following note which appeared to be the issue last year with CAC not being supported on the backhaul and now it appears that it is...

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/wireless/technology/mesh/7.2/design/guide/MeshAP_72.html

The indoor mesh access points are 802.11e capable, and QoS is supported on the local 2.4-GHz access radio and the 5-GHz backhaul radio. CAC is supported on the backhaul and the CCXv4 clients (which provides CAC between the mesh access point and the client).

Note - Voice is supported only on indoor mesh networks. Voice is supported on a best-effort basis in the outdoors in a mesh network.