2.4Ghz high utilization?

[whiterun_guard]

I was looking into wireless connection problems with a client and saw high utilization on the 2.4Ghz band. I thought it had to do with channel interference so I moved the channels around the APs seemed to improve slightly for a day but its back up to high utilization. The 4 AP's that are "very high" are all on channel 1.

Things I've done: Turned on band steering, organized AP's channels for less overlap

Possible problem: There are 10 APs at this site which I think is a little overkill, but would the APs being on different channels not avoid that problem? Also, the transmit power is set to 26 dBm. Any help is appreciated!

[Philip D'Ath]

If you look at Air Marshall - is it 802.11 traffic, or non 802.11 traffic?

If it is non 802.11 traffic, then it will be other devices in the environment using 2.4Ghz. It could be cordless phones, anything with some kind of remote control, a leaking microwave oven, ...

[whiterun_guard]

There are 90 SSIDs detected, most are cars, hotspots, and some printers. Majority are using 2.4GHz. But with our other sites they see the same amount of SSIDs (sometimes more) but aren't having issues.

I'm doing a stare and compare between the other sites and everything seems to be the same... this is a shared building so maybe someone around us it causing problems.

[Brash]

2.4Ghz is a proper mess these days.

There's not a whole heap you can do about heavy spectrum usage, especially from devices you don't control.

Meraki AP's will periodically auto-tune channels and Tx Power to limit conflicts. You can manually change these too but it's generally ill-advised unless you have a good understanding of wireless technologies.

If it's causing impact to your users, your best bet would be trying to migrate devices to 5Ghz and turning off 2.4Ghz.

[aleabrahao]

No, it wouldn't. It is not just neighboring APs that increase channel utilization.

The number of connected clients, the number of SSIDs, the amount of data being transmitted, all of this directly collaborates in the use of the channel, and speaking of 2.4Ghz it is even worse for having only 3 usable channels available.

Do you want an advice?

Migrate to 5Ghz if possible.

[ww^]

Not sure about the size of your map. But 26 dBm looks like a lot. What dBm does your AP use on the 5Ghz? The dBm of je 2.4 should normally be lower then the 5Ghz