Radio Policy 802.11a/g only

[kfarrington]

Hi all

If I turn on the radio policy 802.11a/g only, would or could there be any intererence with my Cisco IP phones running in the 5gHz from voice/data clients running in the 2.4gHz

In theory there should not be any and all Cisco IP phones are set to run in 802.11a mode only.

Just wanted to check with you guys. I cant see why there would be any issues.

Many thx and kind regards,

Ken

[ericgarnel]

80211a/g straddles both 5 & 2.4GHz ranges. If the phones do not support 2.4 or have 2.4 disabled, then no, it should not. Otherwise, you will want 802.11a policy only for the 5GHz phones. You will want to utilize QOS to prioritize the voice traffic on the supporting infrastructure as well.

[kfarrington]

Hey Eric, long time no speak. U ok?

What I have is my Cisco phones that run in all bands. but I set them to 802.11a only on the phone.

I always had my Voice WLAN radio policy set to 802.11a only also as Cisco best practice dictates.

Now reluctantly, I have a couple of Nokia E-series phone devices that do not have 802.11a radios, only b/g. Rather than setup a new WLAN for them, I have just amended my existing voice wlan to allow a/g.

My worry is that the Cisco phones (set to a-only) will have a determented call quality as I have now enabled both 2.4 and 5Ghz on the wlan, but they shoulod be OK right and not interfere with one another?

Just beucase I have enabled g now with A, the cisco phones will just use A and the Nokia phones will just use G, and the A freq will not be affect by the G.

Would you still agree?

Many thx mate for the help,

Kind regards,

Ken

[ericgarnel · Accepted solution]

Ken,

Things are fine here, You doing OK?

You are correct about the A & G not affecting each other over the air.

[kfarrington]

Mate, Many thanks. Things are cool her mate.

BIG 5 for the help mate :)

Kind regards,

Ken

[George Stefanick · Accepted solution]

As already mentioned there is no effect. Each radio is independent of each other. It almost like having two access points in one.

[kfarrington]

thx man for the help. that is good news :)

[migilles]

So if you are using one of the Auto 802.11 modes, the phone can potentially transmit on both the 2.4 and 5 GHz frequencies. Auto-RSSI will probe on all channels at boot, then it will attempt to associate to the AP that has the strongest RSSI (signal). After that, it will not scan (probe) the non-associated frequency. For example, if set to Auto-A, then it will use 5 GHz if available, but if looses the 5 GHz signal, then it can scan the 2.4 GHz frequency.

And of course if set to 802.11a, then will only transmit on 5 GHz.

If you want to use 5 GHz, then I would suggest to set the WLAN (SSID) to 802.11a radio only on the WLC side. Then can either leave the phone in Auto mode or can configure for 802.11a mode as well.

Typically most customers would set the phone to 802.11a as they do have to configure the SSID, so while they have the phone, they configure the 802.11 mode as well. Also hard code to 802.11a, because they don't plan to use 2.4 GHz (802.11b/g).

[kfarrington]

Hi Michael,

As you may see from a previous post, I have two sets of voice devices. Cisco IP phones that run in 5ghz, and Nokia clients with the sccp client in the 2.4 ghz. The Nokia phones dont have A radios. :(

So I have two options, a seperate voice WLAN for each device, or to run a voice wlan in g/a mode to support all devices.

I understand from the previous posts here, that there will be no problems with running this, the main aim is to protect my business critcal calls in the A band. Nokia are a nice to have.

I know that RF interference is going to degrade call quality for the Nokia's but am going to have to manage that somehow :(

We need a Nokia phone in the 5ghz band :)

Also, on this point, I understand that Cisco now soley develop Nokia Call Connect for Cisco and there is a version 2 on the horizon. Do you know about this? Any info for us peeps dying to get hold of the version 2.

Many thx once again :)

Ken

[migilles]

Sorry I only work on the Cisco 792xG phones.

Will probably be pretty hard to find a dualmode phone that supports 802.11a/b/g.