Should I replace my Aironet 1200's with 1500's?

[khurley6ds5]

I currently have four Aironet 1200's covering a 2000' x 2000' area. The coverage isn't as good as we would like, but I don't know how to improve it. Should I simply replace the 1200's with 1500's and add more AP's?

[keithuchida]

IMO, I would look at what power lvls your AP's are set at first, along with what antennas you are using in the area that you are trying to cover. Right now in our facility we are running 15 1231 AP's and we do have some slowness due to probably the voice clients along with the number of RF clients we have on certain AP's.

[khurley6ds5]

I guess I should clarify. The area is outdoor, and we have 4 AP's installed with 180 degree high gain directional antennas on and 5 dbi omnis on the clients (vehicles). What I would like to know is if a mesh network would be better suited to this application.

[bcolvin]

You need to look at the vertical beam width of your 180 degree antennas, i am assuming the 180 os the horizontal beam width. For the best coverage the antennas need to be tilted down to the point that the center of the beam is hitting the ground in the middle of the area covered by the antenna. if your antennas are already pointed towards the ground and still have coverage problems, you need to have a site survey to identify coverage problems. Just throwing 1500's in without a proper survey may not solve your problems as the 1500 can only use a 5.5db or 8db omni antenna.