9120 density issue

[WayneWeezy]

Hello, 

I have a testing center in one of my buildings that often has 300+ students taking exams at the same time. They are not allowed to bring their bags or personal items into the room so they place their backpacks in cubbies along the outside wall of the testing center. There are 4 proctors with laptops on carts that check students in as they walk into the room. The issue I am having is all the devices in these students backpacks are causing the AP to get overloaded so the proctors laptops are very slow on the wireless. Rather than throwing another AP in the hall I wanted to see if something can be done to either prioritize the 4 laptops that actually need wireless, or I am open to any other suggestions. During a test I am seeing ~200 connections to each AP in that area and its making the check-in process very slow for the staff. There are 2 access points in the testing center itself and one AP in each area across the hall.

[Flavio Miranda]

@WayneWeezy 

If this is a dedicated SSID, I would look a Mac filter and permit only the required devices.

[WayneWeezy]

The students connect to a different network than the laptops, both broadcast on the same AP's. When there are no tests going, they use the wireless for studying so I dont think a dedicated AP is possible. I will double check the staff laptops to make sure they are not on the same network as the students but they should be on a different one. 

[Flavio Miranda]

If the AP advertise all the SSID and among them the one used for testing, either you do only advertise the testing SSID on add   more AP for load balance.

[jagan.chowdam]

See if you can use "calendar Profiles" within SSID availability. 

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/9800/17-3/config-guide/b_wl_17_3_cg/m_deny_wireless_client_session_estbl.html

Jagan Chowdam

/**Pls rate useful responses**/

[Haydn Andrews]

Sounds like the WIFI in the area has not been designed for capacity. In testing centres I have generally seen high density deployments using directional antennas to put the coverage where its actually needed and control the number of clients connecting.
I also always ensure coverage is maintained for the foyer areas outside large study spaces.

You could also control this by policy like testing centres like Pearson VUE do with making all students turn off all electronic devices before putting bags into lockers. This also ensures that there no random phones ringing from their bags disturbing people.

[WayneWeezy]

This was definitely NOT built for density, but has become an issue with the devices left on when not in use. I guess I can throw another AP in the hallway near the entry to balance out the load a little more. 

[jadesmoreira]

So if you have a lot of clients that won´t considered when in design/project fase, you need to take actions to solve it like create a new SSID with access control to limit the clients to connect. You can also limit the signal (dBm strength) to connect on the AP.

Or you can create a specific AP Group, put specific APs there and choose specifics SSID to be propagated in theses APs.