How clients use Aironet IE ?

[Oleksii Borodin]

How wireless user can use Aironet IE, if it is enabled?

I am awere that if function Aironet IE enabled - Cisco access point starts sendes in it's beacon information that includes : point name, load, number of associated clients and so on. This function is useful when you are doing wireless site survey, some software could use this information and represent it in site survey reports.

But:

Question 1. How other users that simlpy surfing the Internet can use Aironet IE?

                     Does this information could be used to improve quality of radio connection?

Question 2. Does this extra information make extra payload for radio resources?

Is it useful to disable Aironet IE for High Density enviroment?

[Freerk Terpstra]

Despite the fact that it is "best practice" to disable "Aironet information elements (IEs)", I never have done this myself. The idea (or maybe myth?) is that some clients might get confused because of the beacons. I never ran into these problems nor do I know somebody who did.

Like you already said, this information is very useful during post-deployment site surveys to identify access-points (or on Cisco VoWLAN phones). Do keep your access-points naming limited to 15 chars maximum; more chars will be cut off making the information "less useful". The IEs themselves are not being used by regular clients but you won't see it back into your channel utilization either.

My two cents... :-)

[Oleksii Borodin]

Thanks for advice.