Wireless Bridging and WLC

[cmfndiaye]

Hi everyone,

We were planning to perform outdoor wireless bridging between different buildings in a city.

I wanted to know if it was necessary to install a Wireless LAN controller for this kind of deployment (outdoor only) ?

Thanks!

Regards,

Fadel

[Scott Fella]

Well only if you use a Mesh access point. Either the 1520 or 1550's. These require a WLC. If you are using the Cisco Exalt r5005, they don't require a WLC. Any indoor AP you setup as a bridge has to be autonomous and does not require a WLC.

Makes sense?

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[cmfndiaye]

Thanks for the answer!

But this project only regards the outdoor and particularly the bridging. No need to deserve wireless clients.

So should we integrate a WLC and build a mesh or just configure the wireless bridges autonomously?

Thanks!

[Scott Fella · Accepted solution]

Well what is the requirement for the link. The Exalt bridges do a good job and you can get up to 160mbps half duplex. The mesh is a bit more expensive and are intended not for such a long distance but requires a WLC. If you require higher throughput, then you need to look at another vendors point to point bridging.

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[cmfndiaye]

Thanks again!

The problem is once we finish the project we will not be in the same country and there will be a need to monitor the different point-to-point or point-to-multipoint links.

That is the reason why I was thinking if installing a WLC with the diiferent bridges is possible and may help with monitoring?!