Multiple DCA groups

paul · ‎03-12-2009

Hi Cisco NetPro,

I have a client (a University) that is using the WLC 4402 with software 4.2.176. They have a residence area for students that is serviced by the local cable provider for Internet. Additionally, the University wants to provide wireless access to those students who are unwilling to pay for cable Internet service - but are willing to accept the limited bandwidth (and various protocol restrictions) of the University Internet.

Our challenge is that is we anticipate those students with cable Internet to setup their own wireless APs. Naturally we're concerned with channel overlap between these autonomous (and not controlled by the University) APs and the University wireless system. We could ban student controlled APs, but it seems a bit restrictive so I'm hoping we can come to some sort of a solution.

I was thinking that if we cede channel 6 to student APs, and use channels 1 and 11 for the University wireless we can keep everyone happy. I know we can do this globally, but we have a bunch of other non-residence APs and I'd rather continue to use channel 6 elsewhere in the network. I know we can set the channel manually on a per-AP basis, but then these APs can't react and hop to the other channel if some interference does appear on channels 1 or 11.

The perfect solution would be to specify a DCA for the residences, and a DCA for the rest of the network but I can't see a way to do this. Is there a way?

pw

Scott Fella · ‎03-18-2009

DCA is a global setting on the wlc. I don't see how you can do this unless you split up the wlc to handle certain ap's in certain buildings. Again you have to look at, will students only set their ap to channel 6, what happens if they bring in 802.11N access points or if they have dual band access points... so what about channels in the 5ghz. Leaving RRM on in a building like this might be a nightmare to you.... I can see channels changing all the time and users dropping off. Your best bet is to come up with different plans and give that a shot. Try RRM first to see how the ap's react to all the other RF and if that doesn't work out for you, disable RRM and manually set the channel and power.

Currently you will not be able to set the DCA on specific AP's.

-Scott
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