T300 Connectivity Issues in Sea Port Environment

[yossi_hershko]

Hey Guys,
Our current ( outdated ) wifi system is based on Cisco 4400 Controller with B/G AP's with 8dbi dual omni antennas which mounted and installed at around 25m height poles around the port. ( around 70 AP's total ) 
Last year we upgraded our WiFi system to Zone Director ZD3025 and T300 AP's. ( same number of AP's on the same poles ) 
Our main clients are :
1) industrial PC with Intel 7260 N wifi adapter with 8-9dbi omni external antenna 
2) MOXA 3121 ( B/G ) & MOXA 3131 ( B/G/N ) with 8-9dbi omni external antenna

With the CISCO wifi system - we get solid connection and good coverage and signal all over the sea port area 
Once we moves to Ruckus system - with all the clients we have huge packet drops and ping lost.
Tried :
1) firmware and driver upgrading on all clients
2) Tried different channels and different transmit power experiments 
3) tried different client antennas height and type ( some of them are installed on cranes - some of them installed on moving forklifts and etc..
4) tried to open few support tickets on Ruckus
5) tried same Cisco configuration on Ruckus ( 20MHz , 1,6,11 CH, N type disabled )

Why the newer Ruckus equipment does not work properly ?
Any advise ?
Thanks 🙂

[DarrelRhodes]

Hi Turbine,

Thanks for posting so much detail about your issue. It seems very strange that you're having such issues.

I see the MOXA 3121 and 3131 are dual-band devices, supporting 802.11a 5GHz.  It could be that these devices are connecting on 5GHz if you have it enabled on the Ruckus network/SSID. 5GHz on low-power devices and/or in cluttered environments can often have lower range due to higher absorbtion.

Are you seeing the same level of signal strength (RSSI) at remote locations with the Ruckus network as you did with your legacy Cisco? It's worth checking with a Wi-Fi signal tester software, something free like WiFi Explorer or Netspot will be fine.

What version of ZoneDirector firmware are you running?  What is the exact model number of your Ruckus APs? (you can find this in th ZoneDirector GUI).

Are the Ruckus APs intalled horizontally (ports pointing out) or vertically (ports pointing down) - (you can find this in th ZoneDirector GUI)?

Have you tried connecting another device (e.g. smartphone) to the Ruckus network and testing performance and connectivity at short range and then equivalent distances?

Whereabouts in the world are you (generally, not a specific address)?

Thanks,
Darrel.

[yossi_hershko]

Hey Darrel
Thank you for your quick reply,

5GHz is not allowed here ( Israel ) for outdoor use. So we ONLY use 2.4GHz
We usually see a better RSSI from the Ruckus AP's around 58-70bm ( around 65-75dbm with the Cisco. Once the Ruckus reaching around 68-70dbm the MOXA connectivity is starting to do the most troubles. the industrial pc's are even experience worse issues.

Our Zone Director using Version 10.1.1.0 build 42

Our AP's is t300 like i said. and installed horizontally as you can see on the attached photo. ( Blue cirle = Cisco Antennas. Red cirle = Ruckus T300 Unit ) . 

Laptops connection is pretty good overall . much better than our main clients.
Another thing worth mentioning is we have around 90DB Noise Floor all around here.. Maybe its something that can affect ?
But like i said - we don't have any issues with our clients on the CISCO network.

Thanks

[DarrelRhodes]

Hi!

Many thanks for the updated information, very much appreciated. I wanted confirmation on the AP type as we have T300, T301s, T301n and a whole range of T310 APs also.

It sounds like the Ruckus equipment is doing everything it's supposed to; with increased RSSI and improved performance on your laptops.

What height is the AP at in the photo that you posted? I see in your OP that clients are at varying heights.

What protocols are your MOXA and industrial device application(s) using? Are they standard HTTP/HTTPS/UDP/TCP/SSH/Telnet or something special?

As your non-industrial devices appear to work well on the network, it sounds like a problem that is specifically affecting your MOXA and Industrial PC devices - is this correct?


You mentioned you've already contacted Ruckus support, what recommendations did they have? Have you sent them a config dump from your ZoneDirector?

It feels to me like this is potentially a feature config issue that is causing issues with your older clients and likely something the older Cisco infrastructure didn't have.

Many thanks,
Darrel.

[yossi_hershko]

Hi
Yeah.. our cranes have antennas at around 20m height ( the AP on the pole is at 30m height )
and we have forklifts and other vehicles with antennas around 2-3m height ( the AP on the poles in that ares is on 25m height ) 

Our MOXA connected to other pc's via LAN, them and the industrial PC's runing RDP or VMware remote connections.

We didn't contacted Ruckus directly, our re-seller did, that is why i turn to this forum.
Ruckus first said we have too many AP's and that the transmit power art too strong, than they said the noise floor is too high , they took large number of logs, and the seller did various tests but nothing came up. they have no answer basically. 

I think the question is :
1) are the T300 really capable of running in such a large complex environment ? with all the container and cranes around here.
2) maybe the 3db internal antenna is not enough for here ? are the T610 will make a better connection ?
3) why is the CISCO working flawless with our current devices, and the Ruckus not ?