We're trying to make our 2.4GHz network more stable and client friendly. One of the issues I want to look into is transmit power settings for that radio band. Any suggestions on how to go about setting a decent Tx power level for the 802.11b/g radios? What have some of you done to help improve the quality of that band?
Controllers: WISM-2 modules running 8.0.140
AP Model: AIR-CAP3702I-A-K9
RRM is set to TPCv2 (Interference)
Power Threshold = -67-dBm
Max Power level assignment = 30-dBm (I know, WAY too high. This has just been left at the default)
Min Power level assignment = 14-dBm
We're a school district, and what was decided when we began the project of getting wireless into our schools was that we would be installing an access point into every classroom in our buildings. Classrooms are an average of maybe 1100-1200-sqft (so around 30-ft x 40-ft). What we typically are seeing is VERY high channel utilization on the b/g radios for access points in any given room, usually higher than 70%. Rx neighbors also tend to show up as high as -35dBm from neighboring rooms. We get complaints from users and on-site tech support of client difficulties connecting to the network or dropping connections, even limited numbers of clients being able to connect to the network (ex: we will get reports of, say, 17 clients connecting and then further devices will have difficulty connecting).
We previously had issues where RRM would configure the Tx power on the b/g radios to most of the time be either 1 or 8, not really balancing anywhere in between to limit coverage to the room to keep bleed-over into adjacent rooms at a minimum. We had adjusted the minimum possible power level in RRM to 14-dBm in an attempt to work on this, but it seems this may have been both too high and in the wrong direction.
Thanks a lot, and any insight is very much appreciated!