Very slow bandwidth via ruckus 7372 access points via 100D zone director.

[kopano_matlale]

We have a two floor building with one ruckus 7372 access point on each floor. All the floors (ground, first floor and second floor) are open plan. Ground floor has 20 users, first floor 10 users and 2 users on the second floor. Some how when we are connected to the lan our internet speed is fine, but when we connect via the wifi the speed is extermely slow. Please help, what could be the problem? Oh, our zone director is 100D.

[michael_brado]

If you choose a time when performance seems slow, go to your ZD's Monitor/Access Points page,
and click the first icon to the right of each AP (System Info) and save this Support Text file from both APs.
From the Administer/Diagnostics page of your ZD WebUI, click Save Debug Info button.

You can open a ticket and provide these files for help analyzing your AP RF interference levels, and
client PER/RSSI values, that might help explain observed Wifi performance.

If you only use 2 APs at this site, the ZD may not be telling them to change channels.  An occasional
AP reboot (when not in use), will cause the APs to re-evaluate the best channels (both bands) again.
This might be helpful.

[seanmuir]

What's your cell edge coverage on each floor i.e. -72dBm?

What applications are you using on you network LAN and WLAN i.e. Voice, Video?

What are the interface speeds to the AP's 10/100 or 10/100/1000?

What are your uplinks between switches if any Fibre Copper and what are their interface speeds?

Have you run some speed tests using speedflex or zap:

AP to ZD
STA to AP
STA to ZD

http://www.ruckuswireless.com/products/mobile-apps/speedflex

https://code.google.com/p/zapwireless/downloads/list

Do you have any QoS settings on the WLAN?

Notes:

1. Each client conected to the LAN with and interface speed of 100M will be able to obtain max TCP throughput of 97Mbps - interface overhead of 3%

2. The PHY rate to the AP is based on the client  so typical 1x1 client will only be able to obtain a max PHY rate of 72.2Mbps based on SGI and 1 x Spatial Stream.

3. TCP throughput value per 1 x 1 client is only apprex 50% of that PHY rate value as there is approx 50% overhead on WLAN as opposed to 3% on LAN - giving your clients the oppoortunity to share 35Mbps.

[kopano_matlale]

Good day Sean, Thank you for the reply. What's your cell edge coverage on each floor i.e. -72dBm? What applications are you using on you network LAN and WLAN i.e. Voice, Video? We have for the LAN – QuickBooks, Windows server 2012 and Nashua printers, Cisco Call manager and for the WLAN we have windows 8.1 client machines, office 365 applications. What are the interface speeds to the AP's 10/100 or 10/100/1000? It is 10/100/1000 What are your uplinks between switches if any Fibre Copper and what are their interface speeds? We have two switches on the ground floor connected via cat 6 and one other switch on the ground floor connected to the other switch on the first floor via fibre multimode. There is no switch on the second floor. Have you run some speed tests between the AP and the ZD and STA to ZD and STA to ZD using speedflex ro ZAP?: Ground Floor AP Download link 600Mbps and 655Mbps First Floor AP Download link 599Mbps and 704Mbps Second floor Download link 599Mbps and 684Mbps http://www.ruckuswireless.com/product... https://code.google.com/p/zapwireless... Do you have any QoS settings on the WLAN? I do not think we have QoS on our WLAN. One more thing I picked up was the following; 1. ground floor access point had taken 40 Clients 2. first floor access point had 2 clients 3. second floor access point had 1 client. NB. How can I load balance the access points to balance the clients? Should I upgrade the firmware of the ZD 1100 and the 7372 access points? All the access points are located on the centre of the building, one floor after another. Is this design correct or should I change the locations of the access points? Please advice.

[seanmuir]

To be able to load balance you require more than 1 x AP to be visible in any given area and load balancing must be configured on the controller (I would recommend 17dB is the value set on both radios, as that will allow your clients to be load balanced and still obtain top bitrate on most AP's).

Outside of Ruckus config I would recommend that you conduct an RF survey to determine what your coverage is and then progress from there.

You can use the following free software which may help:

http://www.ekahau.com/wifidesign/ekahau-heatmapper

Note: I would however recommended in an enterprise environment to get a professional RF survey conducted, but this is entirely up to you.

Based on the results of the survey you may find out that there is no floor to floor coverage and you may need to install more AP's.

What you need to look at is the following prior to implementing a Wi-Fi network:

1. Application demand
2. Number of staff  and number of devices per staf member (3 devices per person is a common design principle for client devices)
3. Client session concurrency
4. Client bandwidth requirements, based on either application of a nice to have value.
5. WAN capabilities.

Once you have looked at the above you can then design your network to cater for the appropriate number of clients and the bandwidth needed by the clients.

Just remember coverage is nothing without performance, and performance is always influenced by design.

Good Luck