E700 clients problem @5GHZ

We have installed 2 E700 in poles on an area, where the ap are very close to each other (almost 10m to 15m) for a high dense scenario. The configuration was applied throught Maestro and the only difference from the default values was the enablement of Auto RF (and disablement of interference avoidance). As we noticed the  users at 5GHz was very few compared to the 2.4GHz users. We tried some tricks (resyncing, power reset etc) but the problem was still there. The radio was ON , a different channel was selected on each of ap but we have faced with exteme low number of 5GHz users.. Last night i reversed the options on radio (auto rf disabled and interference avoidance enable) and in logs i saw again users from 5GHz ... Any ideas ?

Could I recommended trying band steering, this feature encourages clients to connect to the 5GHz band rather than the 2.4GHz band.

Further reading: https://community.cambiumnetworks.com/t5/cnPilot-E-Series-Enterprise-APs/Configuring-Band-Steering-on-cnPilot-E-series-Device/td-p/52985

You can find this under the advanced settings of your WLAN in cnMaestro.

I have already tried the band steering but it didn;t help me at all. To be honest im quite disappointment with the perfomance of E700 compare to E500 and E501S (both i have used them  last year in the same place-pole). The field is an open theater with a lot of crowd (some times exceed 3 thousands..) and the ap are installed on two metal poles on the back of the theater on each edge. 

You could also try to reduce the power of the 2.4GHz radio to try and encourage use of the 5GHz radio.

In what way are you disappointed in the performance of the E700? I personally have been very impressed by the performance of the E700.

Though I would say that 2 APs is not nearly enough for 3000+ users.

Of cource two ap for couple of hundrend people are not enought but with e50x series i have seen to fill up with clients and with e700 i have extreme low number of users (even on 2.4) .. something is not right ..

I'd have a look in the events within cnMaestro and see if you can see why client's aren't connecting.

What i have to check ? unconnected clients or something else ?

Any error or warning messages. Connecting and unconnection clients is the expected behaviour, we're looking for anything out of the ordinary.

No errors at all, also my connected users have almost excelent characteristics on snr (on both radios) but as i said after a reset i saw very few users on 5G and after a very short time (less than 20 mins)  none ..

Have you looked for interference on the 5GHz channel?

It's very unusual to see client only connect to the 2.4GHz radio.

Yesterday night i made a change on selectable channels for 5G , i changed to 'prefer no dfs channels. From that time i see users again on 5G. Just to be sure I have to check it again tonight and i ;ll inform you all.

Well , as i posted it and above the issue was the selectable channels (the field is very close to boats, radar issues ? ). Problem solved.

1 Like

Maybe your client devices pool does not contain many 5GHz capable devices?

For instance
I'm in Brazil, and arround here, the typical cellphone and laptops sold on the market(2019 models even) are equipped with 1x1 2.4ghz.

I have been putting some AP's out in the weekends, and i see maybe one 5.8 connection for every 30 2.4ghz connected devices.

Do you have a sample of the makes/models of the client devices?