Client/AP convo packet capture

Luna99923 · ‎07-12-2023

Hi,

just a little background. I did a packet capture between my iPhone 14 and 3802i (tied back to a 9800 WLC 17.3.6) on 5 GHz, channel 36 specifically, no channel bonding (20 MHz wide channels). I noticed that Block ACK's from the AP to the client are 6.5 Mbps.

Is this normal and how is the 6.5 Mbps determined?

Thank you

Flavio Miranda · ‎07-12-2023

Hi @Luna99923

The explanation for that is here:

"

Airtime Consumption

CCI is the top cause of airtime consumption and disabling lower data rates on an AP is a great way to help reduce it. Making sure you have good secondary coverage will also help to ensure clients don’t drop down to low data rates. This is all due to management frames being sent at the lowest configured basic rate, which takes up air time at slow data rates. As we have learned, this is expected behavior. Additionally reducing the amount of SSIDs, reduces the amount of beacon frames being transmitted. The recommendation is to have no more than 3-4 SSIDs."

https://techimike.com/cwna-chapter-13-wlan-design/

Usually management traffic is sent at lower data rates and higher power.