Alcatel-Lucent's WLAN offering is an OEM of the Aruba Networks product
line, so all APs, controllers and code are basically the Aruba product
with our logo.
Our customer - Abilene Christian - deployed iPhones and iPod touches to
the incoming Freshman last school year. One activity they needed to
support was in a room that was 76'x100' with around 300 students mostly
using these Apple devices.
As has been well documented on this list and others, Apple's WLAN
devices are 'interesting' wrt 802.11, so we had to get fairly creative
in the placement of APs and the architecture of channels, etc.
What we found/did:
*
Controller was running 3.3.2.5 which has ARM 2.0 and band
steering.
*
We placed 8 physical APs below tables on the left and right
walls. Putting the APs below the tables creates as much interference as
possible to weaken the signal. The interference comes from the tables,
book, and bodies. The weaker the signal the less channel interference
and the clients attached to the nearest AP reducing channel interference
from the clients.
*
All 8 APs had 802.11a enabled since there are plenty of
non-overlapping channels in the "a" band.
* 6 APs had 802.11g enabled to minimize co-channel interference,
in a 3 channel plan. The channel plan had the AP with the same channel
as far away as possible from the other AP with the same channel. We
found that a 4 channel plan created more problems.
*
"g" radios on the other two APs were converted to Air Monitors
*
We used Band Steering to forces users that have 802.11a/b/g
radios to 802.11a. There are usually 10-40 PCs in the room that
utilized this tactic. This freed up the b/g spectrum for iPhones/iPod
touches.
*
Disabled throughput rates lower than 36Mbps so Apple devices
will connect to the nearest AP by default.
*
Changed AP output to 14-17dbm
This is from memory - if you have any questions, please send me a note
and I'll put you in touch with the Senior Systems Engineer who made this
work.
Regards,
Greg
________________________________
From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of WIRELESS-LAN
automatic digest system
Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2009 11:00 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: WIRELESS-LAN Digest - 11 Aug 2009 to 12 Aug 2009 (#2009-153)
LISTSERV mailing list manager <http://www.lsoft.com> LISTSERV 15.0
<http://listserv.educause.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?LIST=WIRELESS-LAN>
WIRELESS-LAN Digest - 11 Aug 2009 to 12 Aug 2009 (#2009-153)
Table of contents:
* Large numbers of clients in one room (2)
1. Large numbers of clients in one room
* Re: Large numbers of clients in one room (08/12)
From: "Osborne, Bruce W. (NS)" <[email protected]>
* Re: Large numbers of clients in one room (08/12)
From: Justin Hao <[email protected]>
Browse the WIRELESS-LAN online archives.
<http://listserv.educause.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?LIST=WIRELESS-LAN>
Anti-Virus Filter
<http://www.lsoft.com/products/default.asp?item=secured-by-FS&host=LISTS
ERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU&wa=http://listserv.educause.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe>
Powered by the LISTSERV Email List Manager
<http://www.lsoft.com/products/listserv-powered.asp>
**********
Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group
discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:2.1
N:Kovich;Greg
FN:Greg Kovich
ORG:Alcatel-Lucent
TITLE:Business Development - Education Vertical
TEL;WORK;VOICE:+1 219 365 4736
TEL;CELL;VOICE:+1 219 629 0669
TEL;WORK;FAX:+1 219 365 1614
ADR;WORK;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:;;3015 Abby Lane=0D=0ASuite 301-B;Schererville;IN;46375;United States of Ame=
rica
LABEL;WORK;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:3015 Abby Lane=0D=0ASuite 301-B=0D=0ASchererville, IN 46375=0D=0AUnited Stat=
es of America
EMAIL;PREF;INTERNET:[email protected]
REV:20080811T030959Z
END:VCARD
