05-05-2023 03:40 PM
Hi , im new in wireless network, so apologize if question is stupid )). We have office with multiple 7 APs running 5ghz wifi, users complaining about wifi weak signal. wlc and ap setup is auto channel and auto power. Power i see is very low like 6dbm and 14dbm for each channels. I know 5hz channels are not overlapping. Is increasing power on one channel cause interference to another channel? Is power distributed only inside of its own channel? thank you
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05-05-2023 04:10 PM
Hi
" Is increasing power on one channel cause interference to another channel?"
It depends. You have only 7 APs but each AP is in a different channel? They should be as you have enough channel in 5ghz. If each AP is using a different channel so, the answer is no, they will not interfere each other dont matter the power.
"Is power distributed only inside of its own channel? "
Yes, the power is related to the channel but is the AP migrate to another channel, the same power will be applied.
Keep the power and channel in auto is the good practice and cisco recomendation. But, sometimes the WLC does not act as expected and does not hurt push the power to manual and even the channel. If you were dealing with 100 AP would be different but 7 is perfect possible control manually.
Just keep in mind that the problem may not be the AP power. It is a good idea to have a site survery and make sure the clients is not the problem. I got a situation in the past that Qualcomm wireless adapter presented weak signal dont matter how close they were from AP.
05-05-2023 04:10 PM
Hi
" Is increasing power on one channel cause interference to another channel?"
It depends. You have only 7 APs but each AP is in a different channel? They should be as you have enough channel in 5ghz. If each AP is using a different channel so, the answer is no, they will not interfere each other dont matter the power.
"Is power distributed only inside of its own channel? "
Yes, the power is related to the channel but is the AP migrate to another channel, the same power will be applied.
Keep the power and channel in auto is the good practice and cisco recomendation. But, sometimes the WLC does not act as expected and does not hurt push the power to manual and even the channel. If you were dealing with 100 AP would be different but 7 is perfect possible control manually.
Just keep in mind that the problem may not be the AP power. It is a good idea to have a site survery and make sure the clients is not the problem. I got a situation in the past that Qualcomm wireless adapter presented weak signal dont matter how close they were from AP.
05-05-2023 04:24 PM
05-05-2023 05:30 PM
There is no way to determine until someone goes to the site to check and verify the complaints.
05-06-2023 12:06 AM
Telling you have 7 APs with no more information is useless, as it all depend on the size of the office and the existing obstructions. As previously told here, you need to conduct a Validation survey in your current deployment, but a good thing would have been to perform a virtual survey to see if the numbers match and then perform the validation survey.
With the previous been done, using 14 dBm for a 5 GHz radio is pretty fine and almost enough, but remember that maximum power transmission must adapt to the maximum power of the less capable device. If you are only using laptops, then setting Max Tx Power to 14, or even 17 dBm is fine, but if this is a mixed environment with smartphones, tablets and other stuff, then you could end up with power impairment. In this case, if their maximum Tx power is lower than 14 dBm the devices could be trying to transmit and this is not progressing.
Last but not least, as @Flavio Miranda said before, the client side is also important, as with the rapid evolution that we are having on the Wi-Fi nowadays, vendors don't have time to fully test not only the chipsets but also the drivers, and I have dealed with signal issues using Mediatek and Realtek chipsets, and they were fixed after a driver update.
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