I can’t remember - Can we use both MU-MIMO and the Flexible Scheduling at the same time? I seem to remember that we can’t use Flexible Scheduling and something else at the same time, but I don’t remember what that ‘something else’ is.
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Yes! You can! It works fine! What you can’t use is back to back frequency reuse or adjacent frequencies without guard band.
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with Flexible Scheduling, how is the ‘decision’ made with regards to download vs upload speeds. Does it ‘favor’ one or the other (such as prioritizing download vs upload)?
The AP will dynamically split the airtime downlink and uplink duty cycle based on network conditions. If it encounters more downlink traffic, then it will automatically allocate a larger airtime duty cycle % for downlink, and vise versa. Assuming all network and RF conditions are equal, then the airtime ratio for downlink and uplink would be 50/50. Finally, there is a special ePMP feature called “air fairness” built into the schedular that helps prevent traffic hogs with poor RF characteristics from impacting the rest of the subscribers across a busy AP.
In our system, we usually see around a 10% upload value as compared to download. However, we have a large number of people that work from home in our coverage area, so that 10% number will reach as high as 20% at times (during a normal work day/evening). We’ve been running at 50/50, but we’re really wasting upload time/speed that could be used for download, especially in the evenings/weekends when people are streaming TV.
It sounds like we’d be better off to run in the Flexible mode. I’m trying on one AP now, to see how it works, especially over the next couple of hours (prime time for us).
If you have no need for GPS sync/frequency reuse and have enough spectrum for guard bands between adjacent APs/channels (i.e. 20MHz between 20MHz carriers), then flexible would be a better choice then a fixed duty cycle of 50/50.
When you refer to ‘adjacent APs/channels’, do you mean at the same site, or even between sites that are 1 to 3 miles apart?
Yep, both… any radios that can hear each other at high energy levels. For AP’s at different sites that are facing each other, you can minimize these issues by reducing TX power, or adding down tilt to the antennas so the distance covered is shorter and there’s less or no overlap, and making sure connected clients aren’t overlapping and shooting at each other to TX to their respective AP’s.