CW9166I - Getting single 5 GHz radio operating in all UNII bands

[jacksonkwok]

Hi all,

I have a new deployment using 9166. 6 GHz are not yet available in our regulatory domain so the 9166 is default to 2 x 5 GHz radios (slot 1 and slot 2), with slot 1 operating in UNII1 and 2 and slot 2 operating on UNII2E and 3. This "band locking" is the default behaviour when the AP is operating in dual 5 GHz mode (in absence of 6 GHz), as per the below guide.

Cisco Catalyst 9162I, 9164I and 9166I Deployment Guide - Cisco

My question is that, is it possible to disable dual 5 GHz (by disabling slot 2) and get slot 1 to operate 5 GHz across all UNII bands for the time being?

I tried manually disabling slot 2 on the AP and that didn't do the trick. In fact, configuring the channels for slot 1 manually only give me the UNII 1 and 2 channels. Am I missing a check box/command somewhere or this is not possible?

Thanks
Jackson

[Leo Laohoo]

If the Regulatory Domain allows for UNII-2/2e.

[jacksonkwok]

Yes, 2e and 3 are also allowed in our regulatory domain "z".

[Leo Laohoo]

What firmware is the controller on?

[jacksonkwok]

Sorry, I should have included this detail in the original post. It's on 17.9.3.

I am trying to get a TAC case logged as well, but that has to go via our customer and in turn their other partner. Thanks.

[Leo Laohoo]

I will have to try this out tomorrow. 

What country are you in?  In Australia (-Z), 17.12.1 will enable 6 Ghz but I am not really overly excited about using a "dot 1" into production.  It will take, in my humble opinion, about a year before 17.12.3 or 17.12.4 is release and only then will I consider upgrading.  

[jacksonkwok]

I am in New Zealand and same here, I have no plan in deploying 17.12.x any time soon.

So that leaves me operating in dual 5 GHz with the band restriction on slot 1 and slot 2 as per the deployment guide in my original post. Which is fine and that is working as expected. But I just want to see whether there is an option to disable slot 2 and operate slot 1 only across all bands. I have yet to find any documentations that say whether this can or can't be done.

[russell.splain · Accepted solution]

OUCH....(SR 695681557)

I too have this problem.  I have 242 of these CW9166i-ROW AP's installed in India  (IN) Regulatory Domain.  (6GHz not supported).

Default Behavior for this AP in India:  Slot1 5GHz (channels 36-64),  Slot 2 5GHz  (channels 100-165)

Because of a recent User Ping-Pong EAP / Auth crisis between the two 5 GHz AP radios under 17.10.1 code, we were advised to disable the second 5Ghz radio.  That immediately solved the "User Ping-Pong EAP / Auth crisis".  (which I now believe was triggered by the not-recommended combination of 17.10.1 + WPA3 Transition Mode + PMF + FT Adaptive that we had in production).   Now, we are back to 17.9.3 + WPA2-only, + PMF disabled, FT Adaptive, and all is well as far as users are concerned.  

Now, we find that 39 AP's per floor are (unbelievably) sharing a channel re-use plan of only  8  5GHz channels (36-64), since we only have a single 5Ghz Radio (Slot1) in operation.  Eye-poppingly unbelievable.  No WiFi users at the site are complaining, and channel utilization is not that bad.  Other AP's like the 9130ax, or 9136ax, allow a customer to use a single 5Ghz radio and all supported 5Ghz channels ON THAT RADIO, but not the CW9166i-ROW (In India).  We have also converted a test 9166i-ROW (DNA Managed) AP to Meraki Managed, to see if it's capabilities and configurable options are.  Same situation.  Slot 1 = channels 36-64, and Slot 2 = channels 100-165.  Summary:  At present, the only way to get all of your 5 GHz channels, is to operate both 5 Ghz radios.    Working fine in one location as 2+5+5.   At a main call-center in India, we're too scared to revert back to dual 5 Ghz radios, after the business-impacting crisis we had in June.  TAC case is opened, but this AP is so new, that you must have mercy on the TAC staff as not havong a wealth of experience and cases on this model yet.  (I recommend you don't even mention that you've accomplish controller-based converstion from DNA managed to Meraki Managed, or you'll lose TAC competely behind the new rock they will hide behind

[jacksonkwok]

@russell.splain Thanks for the insight. It is really helpful to know that it is not a configuration problem on my side that caused this band locking behaviour to remain, even when operating a single radio only. I will follow this up with TAC. Thanks again.

[Leo Laohoo]

Has TAC provided a Bug ID?

[Rich R]

Thanks for the info @russell.splain - keep us updated and as Leo says insist on TAC getting a bug id opened for it (and share with us here) because without that the BU dev team won't even start working on a fix.  Others with the same issue can open TAC cases so that they're aware that it's affecting multiple customers (and they'll take it more seriously) and reference Russell's SR number (and bug ID when we get one).  Make sure the TAC engineers attach your SR to the bug id once we have it - that allows the bug search tool to show how many customer cases are raised for that bug. 

[eglinsky2012]

Deleted.