What is 802.11bn?

[Sean Devo]

On my Cisco WLC 5500 series > Monitoring > Clients, I see a bunch of clients connected as 802.11g and 802.11bn.  I understand that 802.11g and 802.11b is 2.54Ghz band while 802.11n is 5.0Ghz, but what exactly does it mean when it tells me the client protocol for the device is 802.11bn? Does this mean the client can be either connected to 5.0Ghz or 2.54Ghz? I have not been able to find much documentation on "802.11bn." Thanks

Best Regards,

Sean

[Rasika Nayanajith · Accepted solution]

Hi Sean,

802.11n is 5.0Ghz, but what exactly does it mean when it tells me the client protocol for the device is 802.11bn?

802.11n, it can be either 2.4GHz or 5GHz.

So if it shown as 802.11bn, that mean it is a2.4GHz 802.11n client.

HTH

Rasika

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[Sean Devo]

I've included a snapshot of my radio policy under WLAN > (my SSID) > General

I have devices that are definitely 5Ghz ready. Is the reason why none of my devices are connecting to 5Ghz due to this being set to 802.11b/g only?  Should I change it to "All" if I want my clients to be connected to 5Ghz or 2.54Ghz (depending on the device)?

Best regards,

Sean

[Rasika Nayanajith]

Yes, if you set radio policy to b/g, then client can only connect using 2.4GHz. Change it to all to support both 5GHz & 2.4GHz clients.

Under WLAN advanced tab, there is a tick box for "band-select" which helps to prefer 5GHz over 2.4GHz if it is a dual band client. You can use that to prefer 5GHz for dual band clients.

HTH

Rasika

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[Sean Devo]

Thank you for the fast response. One last thing. I know that Cisco's Client Load Balancing during association time requires the device to have CCX compatibility in order for the controller to decide which AP it should connect to. Is this the same case with Band Select? Meaning, if I have a bunch of apple products (that are not CCX ready) would band select being enabled make a difference?

Best Regards,

Sean

[Rasika Nayanajith]

Hi

Yes, client load balancing is not something recommend to enable.

Bandselect is different, it simply suppress few probe responses in 2.4GHz, allowing client connect in 5GHz as first preference. This gives some reference on that.

http://ccie-or-null.net/2010/11/10/cisco-band-select/

I have enabled this in my production environment to give better experience for dual band clients. 

HTH

Rasika

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[Sean Devo]

Thank you for your insight and advice!

Best Regards,

Sean

[Rasika Nayanajith]

You are welcome.

Give us a shout any time if you have a query on Cisco wireless.

Thanks for rating our responses as well.

Rasika

[Assadullah]

Hello Manannalager

i need your support 

iam using wlc 5508 and ap 1262 some of my ap is 11/n is enable some of ap is not support the 11/n you can see the snapshot as will can i upgrade the ios of my ap 1262 from wlc site with new ios upload and download 

Assad

[Rasika Nayanajith]

Hi Assad,

Pls post "show ap summary" & highlight the two AP mentioned in the above.

Also post the "show sysinfo" output of your controller.

Yes, when you upgrade the WLC software, AP will automatically download the required image from WLC.

HTH

Rasika

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[Assadullah]

Hi 

Thanks for your replay i have upgrade my wlc from                  7.0.116.0 to 7.6.110.0 but the aps Didn't update there ios 

to support 11/n

Assad

[Rasika Nayanajith]

Hi Assad,

Pls provide the requested output as that gives some hint why radio won't come up on that AP.

802.11n support is based on the hardware of AP model, software upgrade won't help on that

HTH

Rasika

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[shaikh.zaid22]

Hi Rasika,

i am facing a poor signal strength issue in one of our client site where we have 25 1700i Aps and 5508 wlc in production, using a wifi scanner utility i saw most of the APs are sitting on channel 1 due is it due to this.

Also pls assist me how to migrate from 2.4ghz to 5 ghz space to all my APs and client.

Thanks

[Rasika Nayanajith]

Also pls assist me how to migrate from 2.4ghz to 5 ghz space to all my APs and client.

I would create a new SSID (if possible) and set Radio Policy (under WLAN > General page) to 802.11a only. In this way that SSID will only broadcast from 802.11a(5GHz) Radios.

Then see what clients are not able to see that SSID & connect. Then you need to decide what % are those and possible migration to 5GHz capable end points.

i am facing a poor signal strength issue in one of our client site where we have 25 1700i Aps and 5508 wlc in production, using a wifi scanner utility i saw most of the APs are sitting on channel 1 due is it due to this.

Do you see this only on 2.4GHz band ? How does output look like for below command

(WLC1) >show advanced 802.11b txpower

(WLC1) >show advanced 802.11a txpower

HTH

Rasika

[shaikh.zaid22]

Yes i used inSSDer and fluke wifi tester to be sure of whether its happenin with clients connecting on 2.4 ghz.,

but for WLANs whose radio policy is set as ALL then also clients are only connecting to 2.4ghz, why not connecting to 5ghz or we need to manually select 5ghz band to used that frequency?