how do you enable 802.11n on the wlc 5508

[carl_townshend]

Hi all

I have the radio 802.11n enabled on my wlc, howver under the WLANS tab under the radio policy, 802.11n doesnt show up, why is this ?

cheers

[Surendra BG · Accepted solution]

802.11N cant drive alone.. it runs on top of either G or A... thats y its not present under the WLAN.. if you have the N supported Aps and then if you have enabled N on the WLC global, then you wil get N speeds if you have configured the clients for either

Open Auth + no encryptions + all MCS rates enabled + WMM enabled

OR

WPA2 (PSK/Enterprise) + AES encryption only + all MCS rates enabled + WMM enabled

Please let me know if this answered ur question!!

Regards

Surendra

[Scott Fella]

Because you use 802.11n on top of 802.11a and 802.11n.

Thanks,

Scott Fella

Sent from my iPhone

[carl_townshend]

Hi

So if I enable 802.11n, if my network card on my laptop is capable of 802.11n will it automatically use it?

how do I know when im using 802.11n then ?

[Surendra BG]

Check whats the card ur using, get the name and search in google wether it supports N or not.. simple way is..

On the card if u see ABGN then it supports N, if not then NO!!

Regards

Surendra

[Stephen Rodriguez]

you'll be able tot tell by the connection speed, or if you look at the clients on the WLC, it will tell you what the client is connected at.

Steve

[Leo Laohoo]

Yes and No.

There are some cards that are only support b/g but they (laptop manufacturers and dealers/resellers) claim that the laptop can do "n".  Without the "a" this scenario is only n-lite (aka the "diet" Coke/Pepsi of the 802.11n).

No idea as to why alot of laptop/netbook manufacturers and/or wireless LAN NIC manufacturers are dumping 802.11a protocol.  I've asked this question before but no one seems to have an idea. 

[blakekrone]

It's all in the costs Leo, consumers want cheaper lower cost devices. Dual band cards are more expensive then their single band counterparts. Now when we talk mobile devices like tablets lower power consumption is possible with a single band card.

It's unfortunate that cost is placed above performance, if only the consumer knew!

[Leo Laohoo]

It's all in the costs Leo, consumers want cheaper lower cost devices.

Hey Blake,

Then something is really s_crewed with the laptops/netbooks in the Australian market.

Cheap/Ultra-Cheap netbooks/laptops in Australia carry multi-band wireless card, I mean the full 802.11a/b/g/n cards, however, the "top end" models carry only single-band 802.11b/g/psuedo-n cards.

Granted that it's got something to do with cost, wouldn't you have the cheap cards go to the cheap models and the multi-radio cards go to the high-end models?

Power consumption?  I don't think so because these large high-end models have batteries that can power the Internation Space Station. 

[blakekrone]

Interesting, most devices I've looked at stateside typically have b/g/psuedo-n cards by default, dual band is an additional cost.

[daviwatk]

Why are we referring to a b/g/n card as pseudo-N or N-lite?  Sure, you "generally" can't take advantage of the channel bonding unless you you are in A band,  but this doesn't mean it's "pseudo" N; it's N or it isn't. Now, some N cards are better than others, in terms of being dual-band, or the number of spacial-streams (very important)

In regards to "cheapness", I think you will find that the "number" of antennae the card has is what may drive up cost, not just having the A in addition to B/G radios.  That's all fine and dandy if you have an 802.11a/b/g/n card, but if you have 1 spatial stream; you will only achieve MCS '7' data rates, which would provide a connected "speed" of 72Mbps, or 144Mbps (assuming channel bond on A spectrum). 

We have customer's who call all the time with single stream devices wondering why they aren't connected at 300Mbps and conquering the air-waves.  You need to cough up the extra cash for a multi-stream (2 spatial-stream minimum) to get your 300Mbps+ speeds (in addition to channel bonding)

[Leo Laohoo]

Good point, David (+5).  Good point.