Irregular ping to AP

[andrea_marini_7]

Hi everyone!
We have built an Unleashed network inside a storing facility recently and everything seems fine, except that sometimes the network slows down. Trying to do some troubleshooting, we found out that when connected to an AP, pinging that same AP gives irregular and quite erratic results. Most of the times, the replies are under 30 ms but there are various irregular spikes that go up to 400 and even 600 ms. This seems completely random, as we didn't move the client, the AP or anything between the two. The wired network seems fine as well.

Do anyone have suggestions on what to troubleshoot further in order to understand what's the cause of this behavior?

[WiFiGuy]

Do all the AP have a home run to the switch or are you using mesh connections for some of the AP?

Consider using WireShark to capture traffic during the slow time to see what is happening on the network?  

Consider Checking the switches give you indication of port utilization?  

[andrea_marini_7]

All the APs have cables running to the switch, when connected to the wired network the ping is perfect at a constant >1 ms, so the issue must be on the wireless communication.

I didn't think about WireShark, I'll look into it. Thanks a lot.

[monnat_systems]

in my experience.. such symptoms point to presence of some level of RF interference in the network... either AP is changing channel regularly to avoid interference or RF outthere is too congested to give you smooth connection over wifi

Is irregular and quite erratic results on pings giving production/business issue or problems?

[andrea_marini_7]

The AP seems to be stable on the same channel, we haven't done a perfect job managing channels to be honest but there shouldn't be much cross-channel interference. It might have something to do with the items stored or other RF interferences such as DECT stations and similar.

The results on the pings aren't giving any issue per se, but people working in the facility complain about a general slowness of the WiFi network.