802.11n and 802.11ac Mixing

[MRCobb]

Hello,

In the WIDEPLOY training they state "you should never mix 802.11ac APs with 802.11n APs.  The training materials did not elaborate on this and I now have a customer that is asking why they should not mix them. 

Does anyone have the exact reasons why you would not want to mix the two?  The customer thinks that this is a ploy to get them to replace everything. 

[Ric Beeching · Accepted solution]

That does sound a bit sales-y to me so I reckon the angle they are going for is 'if you mix them you won't get 802.11ac data rates at all times' which is pretty obvious right!

802.11ac is backwards compatible with 802.11a/n 5GHz so I wouldn't worry about mixing them at all unless there is a specific requirement for ac rates across the whole network.

Ric