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Today, we acquired a loaner from one of the Cisco Sales Engineer in our area. It is a brand new 1250 Draft 2.0 AP. It is the "fat version" with both 2.4 and 5.GHz radios. Warning these APs are a bit heavy , so those of you with lightweight in mind need to get ready for a work out during installation.

So far it is up and running,NO PROBLEMS.

I have it set to max power on both radios. Really wanted to do a generic test (optimized) range in a drywall/cubicle type setting.

Got well over 100 feet away from the 2.4 GHz (MIMO-enhanced) radio and still remained connected from my laptop with a b/g internal card (SISO - enabled). The SNR levels are something else!

At 2.4 GHz had basically the same range results with my Blackberry Curve , scanning for SSIDs.

Will attempt to connect to the (5GHz)radio next week and see how it holds up.

Also next week:

Will be converting it over to LWAPP to talk to one of the controllers. Will perform more field tests but not at a scientific or theory level. Just want to see how it performs in a real-world environment with other WLAN legacy radios operating and people in the way.

Well enough techno talk for today. You all have a a Merry Christmas /Happy New Year.

Good luck, I hope to hear more of the range improvements and throughput gains.

Reading the Q&A on the new 1250, I found that mesh won't be supported on the initial IOS release, but may be worked in later.

I also hear the benefit of the higher throughputs are lost when using VoIP, due to the loss in ability to set max aggregation, due to the latency it causes. There are quite a few controllers that do have documented VoIP via 11N and it will be interesting to see how quick Cisco can catch up.

Most exciting to me is the addition of Navini (WiMax w/smart beamforming) and Cognio (the spectrum analysis company). Maybe you could commet on the management piece and whole WCS vs legacy WLSE?

Are you going to be doing any location tracking with Cisco's Wireless Location Appliance? Also, do you have any special enclosures or using any other extension antennas with the 1250 APs? Using POE with a splitter or powering them direct from DC or power supply? Will you be doing voice or any specialized applications over the improved MIMO network? Is this a greenfield deployment, with no legacy clients on the dedicated MIMO radio? That is the way to go for 11N, then 2.4GHz can be wasted on those legacy clients, so long as you have an ethernet link and aren't relying on a bridge link for the 11a radio.

I've read the benefits of the new UWB tags, and how they can get down to 12-16 inches of accuracy compared to the legacy wifi or proprietary tags that only get 3-20ft in accuracy.

Well, I too have rambled enough for one night, let us know more about this migration to MIMO, it's a brave and innovative move!

codeman14150,
Thanks for the reply,

Yes there is much to learn and venture into with this 1250 and the "Cisco Way forward with Wireless".

There are other vendors that support this and in no way are they inferior or superior to Cisco. We just happened to select Cisco based on support issues.

We will also be implementing Network Admission Control Admission Control (NAC) for endpoints internally. Guest access is also another future project.

I will try to go through those questions :

Are you going to be doing any location tracking with Cisco's Wireless Location Appliance?

Just rogue APs and clients for now, we have the 2700. I don't particular care for the manual calibration feature that helps you get closer resolution of tracked devices. It requires you to collect over 150 data points per floor to get the granularity to locate a device within 5 meters. I wish there was another way that automated this.

Do you have any special enclosures or using any other extension antennas with the 1250 APs?

No we only have the dipole antennas for now. I will ask my leadership for the external directional and omni antennas to further understand the propagation factors once I go through the benefits. We have some 1242 APs that we maybe trading back in to acquire the 1250s.

Using POE with a splitter or powering them direct from DC or power supply?

There is a power supply that provide POE to the AP that we borrowed. It is the new power injector. Both radios operate with it, no problems.

Will you be doing voice or any specialized applications over the improved MIMO network?

Yes.

Is this a greenfield deployment, with no legacy clients on the dedicated MIMO radio?

No. We have a large dispersed remote set of office buildings and schools to cover so costs and legacy support for older clients is taken into consideration.

Maybe you could comment on the management piece and whole WCS vs legacy WLSE?

WCS beats WLSE hands down. I think central management and LWAPP for security reasons works for us .

I will follow-up with additional findings.

Very Strange:

No security enabled: client with "N" Intel chipset connected 144Mbps

Security enabled: same client with "N" Intel chipset connected 54Mbps



:?

Hii Compughter

what security have you enabled , I guess MCS rates are supported for WPA/WPA2 only .

Try checking in the console of the AP , may be it will help you as there should be some logs if the MCS rates are not supported for particular security type

If your client is connecting properly with no security , it should also connect at N rates with WPA/WPA2 security.

ALso you can try enabling , 40Mhz , you should get more than double over the air connectivity with 11n ap .

Hi vinay_techie4u

We tried both WEP TKIP and WPA Personal got the same results.

We will try WPA/WPA2 at the enterprise level.

I want to use a the PSK passphrase but will also try using EAP PEAP or FAST against ACS/RADIUS.

The client card is set to Auto for the bandwidth but I will hard set it to the 40 MHz instead of letting it default to 20 MHz.

Perhaps this is a way to move customers and devices away from WEP based security algorithms to get the enhancements of MCS... :-?

Thanks vinay-techie4u

WPA2 works like a charm...144Mbps@20 MHz. Will try 40MHz next.

compughter,

Thanks for your feedback on your installation.

It sounds like you and vinnay are discussing the data rate the devices connect at. Have you measured your actual throughput yet?

Devin had a great article on his 11n experiences and I just wanted to know if the newer Enterprise Cisco AP has better, the same, or less performance than its predecessors.

Ixia QCheck (http://www.ixiacom.com/products/performance_applications/pa_display.php?skey=qcheck) can help you determine the actual throughput you are getting between two clients, or between wired and wireless clients.

I'd love to know what actual throughput you are getting in relation to your new 11N network. If using an 11N Draft 2.0 client (if you can find one!), what kind of speed do you get from it to a wired system?

Thanks for your feedback and putting your honest findings up for us to all see and comment on. This is as exciting as Wi-Fi technology has gotten in quite a few years, and it's great to be on the front lines.

Good luck with your install, and Have a Happy New Year if you don't get back to this until then.