R710 coverage and features

[chennai_itsuppo]

Hi We are currently using ZD1200 with 5 R700 AP and planning on adding two more AP but there is no enough channel on 5GHz 80 MHz so we move to 5GHz 40MHz but we are not so impress with the performance. And i heard that R710 has better coverage compare to R700. Can someone confirm that for me please... also if its true how does it enable better coverage on 5GHz ... i mean both R710 and R700 when deploy on 5GHz 80MHz they are both seems running on the same frequency to me ... please need clarification.....

[john_d]

I have an R600, R700, and R710, and I can confirm that the R710 has noticeably superior coverage. It seems to be able to deliver similar speeds as the R700 through one additional wall. The major differences for the R710 over the R700 are that it:

 - has more BeamFlex elements for forming more antenna patterns
 - Has 4 radio chains (4x4:4) which presumably improves antenna diversity
 - Supports 802.11ac chip-based beamforming (e.g. 4x4:4 can make a 2x2:2 beamformed signal) in addition to BeamFlex
 - Has a much better RX sensitivity than the R700/R600, which permits it to hear clients from further away.

But to be honest, the R600 is still a star for cost:performance ratio. And if you ask me, would you have 1xR710 or 2xR600 for a given deployment, I would lean towards the latter, unless you are truly out of channels due to high-density deployment and improving the AP is the only way to improve performance.


Can you elaborate what your performance concerns are for your R700 APs? What kind of clients are you serving, what performance are you seeing, and what kind of performance are you expecting?

It is peculiar that with 5 AP's, you are simultaneously concerned about 5GHz coverage *and* number of channels.

[seanmuir]

The r710 also has upwards of 4000 antenna array patterns to that of the r700 which has upwards of 3000.

Note: The only coverage benefit is on the uplink as the downlink is maintained by EIRP.

Apart form the what John has already said the only additional benefit would be performance within the coverage area due to the r710 having more antenna, more spatial streams, and higher bitrate capability.

[chennai_itsuppo]

Thank you John and Sean ... i'm focussing more on Airtime (so need good signal strenth+enough bandwidth+non-co channel) and we have androip phones, apple iphone, android tablet, ipad, ipod, Mac book air and pro, xbox, windows laptops, kindle .... apple tv ... voip soft phone like 8x8, skype , google hangout ....
and concurrent user is around 202 - 210. Since we moved to 5GHz on 40MHz the airtime increases and it concern me .... oh and we have 45mpbs+30mbps = 75mbps WAN line which are club together.
And a supermicro poe+ 1Gigs 54 ports switch. And the way i understand it .... R710 could be the better option... and average bandwith usasge is around 25+15mbps ...

[john_d]

Many of the clients you mentioned here are 2x2:2 and 1x1:1, which would source little benefit from the move from a 3x3:3 to a 4x4:4 AP. Definitely the R710 could be a slightly better option, but I would at the same time temper the expectations for dramatic improvement.

Definitely with a 200+ concurrent user scenario on 40MHz channels, you've got a high density high bandwidth requirement setup. Adding more AP's is probably the better way to go for now. When Ruckus adds Airtime Fairness to 802.11ac, that might help.