topic Re: How can I Shut down 5Ghz on APs via Zone Director in Access Points - Indoor and Outdoor

How can I Shut down 5Ghz on APs via Zone Director

joseph_harvey_j — Tue, 21 May 2019 07:43:11 GMT

Is there a way to disable the 5Ghz on APs?
Either via ZD or individual AP config?

The reason I ask is that the APs are only able to do 16 SSIDS (8 on 2.4GHz and 8 on 5Ghz)
I would like 10 SSIDS however am unable to do this with 5Ghz using half of the AP.
I understand this is not "Best Practice" however would like to use the amount of SSIDs actually shown on the Ruckus Website which is 16.

TIA

Re: How can I Shut down 5Ghz on APs via Zone Director

andrea_coppini — Tue, 21 May 2019 07:47:01 GMT

It's a bad idea to have 10 SSIDs. Each SSID (hidden or not) will eat into your airtime and slow down everything, especially on 2.4Ghz. Reduce your SSIDs.

Either way, turning off the 5Ghz radio won't increase the number of SSIDs available on 2.4Ghz.

What are you trying to achieve exactly? Why so many SSIDs?

Re: How can I Shut down 5Ghz on APs via Zone Director

abedel_hamid_al — Tue, 21 May 2019 10:56:17 GMT

the number of ssid can't increase by disable any frequency in wifi such as 2.4 or 5 G
so you will use just the number of ssid that in AP

Re: How can I Shut down 5Ghz on APs via Zone Director

joseph_harvey_j — Wed, 22 May 2019 07:29:47 GMT

Why advertise and sell a product that says it can do 16 SSIDs if it can't.
I didn't ask for any advice on the amount of SSIDs to have thanks, i asked if it was possible to make this product do what it claims it can.

Re: How can I Shut down 5Ghz on APs via Zone Director

andrea_coppini — Wed, 22 May 2019 07:33:52 GMT

the product can do this, as you have already noticed, but so many SSIDs are against WiFi best practice.

See:
http://www.revolutionwifi.net/revolutionwifi/p/ssid-overhead-calculator.html
and
http://www.wifi-professionals.com/2018/08/ssids-overhead-effect-on-channel-utilisation

I asked what is the application for so many SSIDs, usually there are other ways of supporting different services without having to resort to using multiple SSIDs.

Re: How can I Shut down 5Ghz on APs via Zone Director

joseph_harvey_j — Wed, 22 May 2019 08:11:14 GMT

Well the product can't do this, as it does 8 in 5Ghz and 8 in 2.4Ghz so practically you only get 8SSIDs.

I have 4 wifi user networks (w1,w2,w3,w4) for internet connectivity. Then I have one for audio devices (a1) that needs network connectivity but no one should be able to access over the network.
Then I have chromecasts in 5 rooms which relies on bonjour to advertise. (r1,r2,r3,r4,r5,r6)

W1 is allowed to cast to all rooms r1-6.
W2 is only allowed to cast to r2,r3,r4,r6.
W3 is only allowed to cast to r1,r3,r4,r5.
w4 is only allowed to cast to r1, r4, r6

The bonjour gateway is configured on the ZD to advertise the appropriate bonjour to the allowed networks.

For example w4 only gets multicast through the bonjour gateway for r1, r4 and r6 so it can't see the other rooms or cast to them.

Re: How can I Shut down 5Ghz on APs via Zone Director

andrea_coppini — Wed, 22 May 2019 10:46:22 GMT

I'm assuming there is more than 1 AP and you would like guests to be able to stream just to their TVs. You could enable SSIDs just on the APs near the rooms. use AP Groups/WLAN Groups to do this. The 8 SSID limitation is on the AP radio, the ZD can handle many more.

A more scalable approach would be to remove the need for multiple SSIDs altogether.

Create one SSID with Captive Portal authentication with Internal Database
Use Roles to define different VLANs for different Roles
Create different Users tied to those different Roles
Finally, use Bonjour Gateway to map VLANs to Chromecasts.