WLC 2504 with 5 CAP2702e performance issues

[baraksteve]

Installation is in NYC so very high wireless competition. Everything is working but performance is not there.

Time Warner Cable is 300MBps down / 15MBps up

1 AP per floor, 5 floors, with two AIR-ANT2524DW-R Antennas per each AP. All APs are POE.

If I stand 6 feet away from the AP I get 5MBps on speedtest.net 

Using 802.11 a/g WAP2/AES

WLC primary image = 7.6.120.0

[Leo Laohoo]

We will need more information than this: 

1.  What is the make and model of the wireless NIC used for testing? 

2.  Did you enable 802.11n?

3.  At 6 ft, what is the signal strength the wireless client can see of the signal from the AP? 

4.  At 6 ft, what is the signal strength the AP is seeing of the wireless client? 

[baraksteve]

My laptop is an ideapad U430 touch with, Intel(R) Wireless-N 7260

Same problem with Samsung Galaxy S4, ipad, apple laptop etc...

Most devices we tried are 802.11n and are fairly new / recent models.

Signal strength usually shows 4 to 5 bars. Looking at Wifi analyzer on my Galaxy S4, it shows -50 dBm standing 6 feet away. When I am 6 feet away from the Time Warner box (wifi enabled) it is like -30dBm or in my house close to my FiOS actiontech modem I am also like -30dBm

Are there any common settings that are recommended to be changed from defaults? I know evey environment is different, just wondering if there are any settings that most commonly changed on the WLC 2504 for performance tweaking...

[Leo Laohoo]

Intel(R) Wireless-N 7260

Ok, we're getting somewhere.  According to the Intel website, this card is a 2.4 Ghz (only) wifi card with 2 spatial stream.  According to the website, the latest firmware for this card is version 17.0.3.  I would strongly recommend your wireless NIC gets loaded with this version as previous firmware (like the 12.X), there were huge stability and performance issues.  

I'd upgrade the firmware first before proceeding any further.  

[Amjad Abdullah]

I would add to the Leo comments that there must be a site survey to eliminate possible noise/interference around you. Have you conducted a site survey prior installation?

It is important to check 802.11n rates and your client adapter type as Leo suggested.

One more thing is, that speedtest.net is not an indicator of the internal wireless network speed. It is limited by your internet source and how many people share the internet in your company.

You need to do a trusted throughput test using a proper tool (iperf for exapmle) to test your internal network capabilities; not the internet speed.

HTH

Amjad

[Abhishek Abhishek]

It is prefeeres to go with the latest WLC version as well as

POOR THROUGHPUT-

Problems with bridge performance are the most difficult to troubleshoot because there are so many variables involved. In the case of wireless products, the majority of variables are literally invisible. Bridges have tools built into their software that can help to accurately determine the cause of symptoms of poor throughput, but they might not be able to solve the underlying problem. As a basic approach to troubleshoot this problem, you can increase the transmit power on the non-root bridge. Also, if the distance between the root and non-root bridge is less than 1km, you can set the distance on the root bridge to 1. Therefore, an increased throughput can be obtained.

Remember that the IEEE 802.11b protocol specifies 11 megabits per second, half-duplex, wireless communications. Set your throughput expectations accordingly.