Cisco Medianet vs WMM

[sokarlsson]

I have a customer that have none cisco softphones installed on thier laptops. In the softphone application we set the DSCP to use for RTP traffic to 46 to comply with Cisco medianet. This works well as long as the client is wired. Problem comes with wireless.

WMM and 802.11e states that class 6 and 7 is voice. WMM maps DSCP 48 to class 6 and 56 to class 7 both these classes end up in AC_VO. DSCP 46 on the other hand maps into class 5 witch maps into AC_VI (Video).

The result is that all traffic from the softphone client is treated as video over the wireless and exiting the AP on the wire the traffic is marked with DSCP 34. The WLC then pass this on as DSCP 34.

I could handle remapping DSCP 34 to DSCP 46 (EF) in the closest switch after the WLC but the question is: Do the APs treat the traffic correctly over the air? As I understand it the answer is no.

I have tried to find a way to modify the settings in the clients DSCP 46 maps to WMM class 6 but can't find a way to do that. I have also tried to find any specs on the differences in trestment of  AC_VI and AC_VO in Cisco Lightweight AP to see if it's accceptale but info is very sparse.

Anyone got any ideas how to deal with this beside just changing the softphone settings to send traffic with dscp 48?

How do Cisco SoftPhones or Personal Communicator secure the right class of service over WLAN and wired?

Some hard facts:

Clients: Stationary PC with EDIMAX EW7228In or Laptops with various Intel nics all supporting WMM.

Network: Cisco 5508 WLC running 6.0.196.0 and AP1142n accespoints.

Need advice

[Rene Mueller]

Hello,

interesting point! Did you ever got a solution for this problem?

Rene

[Ric Beeching]

First off you should definitely upgrade your software (and probably your firmware too). Version 8.x is currently recommended and you are running a very old software version. Test and see if this alters the behaviour of these markings.Warning: For upgrade of firmware that can take up to 1 hour and requires the WLC to remain powered on the whole time (no hard resets) or it will brick the unit.

https://software.cisco.com/download/release.html?mdfid=282600534&softwareid=280926587&release=7.0.230.0&rellifecycle=ED&relind=AVAILABLE&reltype=all

Have you followed the recommendations outlined here including platinum QoS?

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/solutions/Enterprise/Mobility/vowlan/41dg/vowlan41dg-book/vowlan_ch2.html

[Ric Beeching]

Oh wow I've just realised this was dragged up from 7 years ago. My bad.

[Rene Mueller]

Hi,
I already did my tuneup on wlc. Installed Software release 8.3. But I have to be Aware of that 1140 series AP do not Support Features which are released after Version 8.0.

How did you solved the Problem on the Client side so that 802.11e/WMM Uplinks are transmitted as AV_VO? I think we have tup manipulate DSCP values, using 47 or 48 instead of 46.

[Ric Beeching]

Yeah the features in 8.3 shouldn't affect QoS etc with the 1140.

So are you seeing the markings come through as video as they hit the WLC from the client? Are your phones 802.11e compliant?

Ric

[Rene Mueller]

Yes, we are using Jabber on Windows Client. We do DSCP marking via GPO.

[Ric Beeching]

Ok so thankfully someone smarter than me, the dependable Rasika, has looked into this before and confirmed my line of thinking. Due to the AP/WLC depending upon the markings from the client, this might not be fixable. He has seen this behaviour on Android. 

So as long as the WLAN policy is set to platinum this should be remarked to Voice and treated as such to the WLC and egressing.

https://supportforums.cisco.com/discussion/11672336/jabber-android-qos-marking

Are youseeing these packets egress the WLC with incorrect markings?

Ric