3000 Users

[Bshurilla]

Okay, so our church is having a special event that involves the people joing our wifi, and we are expecting around 2500 to 3000 users. With that being said, how in the world can we support that many wifi users at once? The event will basically happen twice, each time having about the same amount of users for about an hour.

[Leo Laohoo]

How often does an event like this happen in a year?

Indoor or outdoor wireless?

How big is your internet link?

[Bshurilla]

well, it happens once a year, however we also have a college, but that wifi absolutely has to get upgraded must likely with the equipment we buy for this one event, then each year we would reposition it for the main auditorium where the event takes place. We still only have consumer grade ap's (They just brought me on as a sys admin for the college) and there is a good 1000 - 1200 users every day on it both indoors and out, covering about 20 acres of buildings and property, but for this event it would be indoor. We have a full T1 line and see regular 100mbps down and 50 up with almost no latency..

The room in question is a large, 2500 person auditorium.. we have full access to the ceiling including cat walks up there..

[Leo Laohoo]

The room in question is a large, 2500 person auditorium.. we have full access to the ceiling including cat walks up there

You will definitely need a wireless site survey done.

1.  APs, such as the 2600 and 3600, are fine however you mount them.  Either wall- or ceiling-mounted should work fine.  Not sure if you are interested in deploying 802.11ac but a new model, 3700, is scheduled for release/announcement by the end of 2013.  3700 can support 802.11ac natively.  Depending on how the wireless site survey will go, mounting the APs along the walls is a no-brainer.  The difference is the interspacing between each AP.  With such a large number of wireless clients, I'm suspecting it would be 10 metres distance between the next AP.  You can get an Oberon 1029-00 (pictured below).

2.  Now, the next question is the centre.  Depending on how high the cat walks are and how much cover you'll get, I'd say interspace each AP 10 metres apart.

3.  If the catwalks are too high, I've read of a deployment where they've put a plastic enclosure under the seat and that where the APs are installed.

4.  Co-channel interferrence will be a significant problem.  You may need to disable the data rates of each radio from 18 Mbps and below.  This will create a small zone and minimize the chances of co-channel interferrence.  Again, you'll need to consider #3.

5.  Controllers, definitely you'll need one.  5508 would be a good fit.  If you need switching and PoE, then you may consider 3850.

6.  Go through the Wireless LAN Complaince Status document and be wary of getting the correct regulatory domain of your AP, i.  e.  If the APs will be installed in UK (-E), don't get the APs with the regulatory domain of Japan (-A).

[Leo Laohoo]

it happens once a year

It is a very expensive exercise for something that happens once a year.

What I would suggest is you can re-deploy the APs once the yearly event has finalized.

If you don't have problems with fundings, then getting an AP like the 3600 and the 3700 would be a good choice.  If funding is of concern, then 2600.  Don't even bother with the 1600, 600 or 700.

[Bshurilla]

yeah, we would definitely redeploy them after this event, I'm not sure what kind of budget we had, I didn't get included on the meetings where they talked about this due to me being college side.. so yeah, I think its not really you know unlimited, but I can get them to spend what we need to do this properly..

[Leo Laohoo]

Cisco Aironet 3700 Series Access Points Data Sheet

[Scott Fella]

You can always just deploy for normal use and then have temp stands for access points when you need additional access points. At Cisco live they used speaker stands to hang the Ap off of they are sturdy and you extend the stand to raise the ap up if you want. We also had talked with a church in a similar manner and cabling was the biggest issue. I too have heard of APs being mounted under seats. That's like an Aruba thing:)

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPhone App

[mscherting]

Look here:  https://blogs.cisco.com/borderless/guidelines-for-effective-high-density-wireless-lan-deployments-for-conferences-and-other-environments/

There is also a CiscoLive presentation about a 500 seat lecture hall at a Texas university where all students were required to use the WiFi, but I can't find it at the moment.  Very informative.  High AP density, reduced cell sizes, channel re-use; APs mounted under the auditorium floor.

Maybe somebody else can find it.