cnPilot e600 (11 devices) with poor performance

Products Enterprise Wi-Fi Networks
1

Hi, we have 11 cnPilot e600 with 2.4 and 5Ghz channels. 7 in 11th floor and 4 in 13th floor. There are discussion here about the our wi-fi poor performance. How to identify the problem ? Please any help will be welcome

2

Welcome to the Cambium forum!

Poor wifi performance on an indoor network is usually caused by wifi clients connecting to the wrong AP. Ideally, you want a wifi client to always connect to the closest AP. The wifi client picks the AP it chooses to join, but your job is to make sure the RF environment is set up so that the wifi client can make the best decision.

Here are some tips to give your wifi system the best RF environment:

  1. Channel plan - make sure that your channel plan does not have overlapping channels. In an environment like you describe (7 AP’s on a single floor), select using one wide channel with all AP’s on the same channel if you have <30 to 50 users on the floor. If you have more than 50 users, then create a channel plan using 40 MHz or 20 MHz channels that do not overlap.
  2. AP transmit power levels: try to lower the power level so that wifi clients on one side of the floor do not connect to AP’s on the other side of the floor. For example, a wifi client on the west side of the building should only be able to connect to one or two AP’s on the west side. Not knowing how large the floor is, you do not want clients on the west side connecting to AP’s on the east side of the building.
  3. Use AP group in cnMaestro to manage the AP’s configurations. Adjust AP configuration from the AP group only. You can monitor the performance of individual clients from cnMaestro (which AP they prefer to connect, RSSI, SNR, data volume, etc). Use enhanced roaming to manage when a client is asked to connect to different AP by setting a high SNR threshold. This should help keep clients on the best performing AP.
  4. Use the hot spot controller to authenticate the wifi users, and make sure that a DL and UL max information rate is configured. If your WAN connection has limits of capacity, you can use the MIR function to make sure your network does not draw any more data than the WAN can support. A bottleneck in the WAN connection with no MIR used can result in 1 or 2 clients getting all the bandwidth, and very high latency or even dropped connections when other clients try to get online.
  5. When the office is empty, do a detailed site survey after any change in network configuration. Document the performance you get with an known good laptop or smartphone at many locations on each floor. Note which AP the client is connected to, DL and UL throughput achieved, RSSI value, and SNR value at that location.

The e600 is a very good high performance AP. I’ve seen them deployed in many different situations requiring high capacity (schools, municpal buildings, halls and entertainment venues).

I hope this helps you out!

2 Likes
3

The power level is 14 in all radios (2.4 and 5GHz). All changes are made only in cnMaestro. Thanks. I have less than 50 users in each floor, so i must set same channel for all aps in this floor ?

4

Hi,

I never used manual (fixed) channels for APs.
I’ve always put on auto, also for power.

Some advice that we use:
On 2.4 minimum multicast rate 12
Mode gnax
Airtime fairness ON
Enhanced roaming OFF
Dynamic Channel and Dynamic power ON

On 5 minimum multicast rate 12
Prefer non DFS channels
Mode default
Airtime fairness OFF
Enhanced roaming OFF
Dynamic Channel and Dynamic power ON

For start, every other settings on default.

5

Thanks !!! I’ll try like this