Getting started with 802.11ac?

[mscherting]

Any docs, config guides, best practices for configuring/running 802.11ac?

A "customer" has demanded ac and procured a demo 3702i.  I upgraded their 5508 FUS to 1.9.0.0 and code to 7.6.110.0 last night.

So far I've setup one WLAN as 5Ghz only, 802.1x WPA2/AES with WMM required and enabled 80Mhz channels.

What else to do?

Thanks!

[Rasika Nayanajith · Accepted solution]

Hi

That's pretty much it, now if you have 802.11ac clients (Nexus 5, Samsung S4 or S5,  latest Macbook Pro or Macbook air or any other supported clients) you would see those are connected in 11ac data rates.

Refer this for my testing with 3700 with 802.11ac clients.

http://mrncciew.com/2014/01/10/802-11ac-with-cisco-3700-ap/

HTH

Rasika

**** Pls rate all useful responses ****

[mscherting]

Thank you !  Great info.

Of course, now they're asking how to get 802.11b clients working.

[Rasika Nayanajith]

Hi,

You should advise them NOT to enable 802.11b data rates as that will impact  whole wireless environment.

Here are two blog posts explaining the negative impact of 802.11b & steps to moving away from 802.11b

1. Wi-Fi & Taxes: Digging into the 802.11b Penalty

2. Bring Out Yer Dead: 5 Steps to Eliminate 802.11b From Your Networks

If they really do then you need to enable 2.4GHz (802.11b/g/n band) for this WLAN & enable 5.5Mpbs & 11Mbps data rates. But my advise would be ask them to replace 802.11b clients from their network.

If they simply mean (802.11g/n) then no problem of enabling 2.4GHz band for this WLAN, but make sure 1,2,5,5,11Mpbs are disabled in  802.11b/g/n band.

HTH

Rasika

**** Pls rate all useful responses *****

[mscherting]

Thanks everyone for the additional input!  

I already had b rates disabled.  For testing, I re-enabled b rates on a guest WLAN and added the WLAN to the test AP group rather than clutter up a clean ac WLAN.

[Rasika Nayanajith]

If customer requirement is simply connect 2.4GHz band devices to this WLAN, then you can select radio policy "all" instead of 802.11a only.

But as stated below disable 1,2,5.5,6,9,11Mbps data rates under 802.11b/g/n Network. You can make 12Mbps mandatory in that band.

HTH

Rasika

**** Pls rate all useful responses ****

[Leo Laohoo]

There are currently TWO APs which can support 802.11ac:  AP3700 and AP2700.

[George Stefanick]

I did early beta testing on the 3600 module and the 3700 AP. 

Here is actual (non marketing) throughput on the MAC AIR and MAC BOOK 11ac w/ 3700

MAC AIR 2x2:2

MAC BOOK 3x3:3