Purpose of Lightening Arrestors when the Wireless Access Points are any ways grounded?

[Muhammed Adnan]

Hello Experts, 

In the Hardware installation guides of outdoor APs, there's a section for "Installing a Lightning Arrestor". The lightning arrestor is designed to be installed between the antenna cable that is attached to an outdoor antenna and the Cisco Aironet wireless device(basically an AP). 

So certainly its not meant for protecting the Antenna or the Antenna cable itself, but to protect the "Access Point" from "lightning static discharges".

However if the Wireless Access Point is already grounded with the "ground measures"stated in the "Installation Guide", then can we omit using the lightening arrestor??

[Scott Fella]

You should always use a lightning arrestor when you have antennas/AP’s in an outdoor area. You are preventing equipment damage from an indirect lightning strike. This isn’t for a direct lightning strike by the way. That will for sure damage your network gear. Folks whom have antennas in areas where there are lightning, would use a lightning arrestor outside and one inside along with a fiber link of some type to help prevent other equipment from getting damaged. Just depends on how far you want to go.