AP One AC Mini Channel Selection

Product Discussion Pepwave AP & Surf
#1

I have 3 AC Minis (wave 2) and all three are on the same AP Profile “Default” which has channel selction set to “Auto”.

It looks like the 3 devices chose non-overlapping 5GHz channel, but all of them chose the same 2.4GHz Channel (Chanel 1).

I’d like to force them non-overlapping channels. What’s the best way to do this?

Under AP / Settings I could create 3 AP Profiles (one for each unit?)

Or under Controller Status / Access Point / AP Details (the little pencil icon) you can override the channel selection. There is a single popup menu with these options:

Follow AP Profile
Auto (Preferred Frequency)
2.4GHz:
Auto
… list of channels …
5GHz
Auto
… list of channels …

This confuses me, as it looks like you can either choose a 2.4GHz channel or a 5GHz channel, but not both at once?

I’m using Balance One 8.0.1 and AP Mini AC 7.0 firmware.

#2

Issue 1: After tesing, no matter what I do, it seems the Balance One will only let me create two AP profiles (the default one, and one more). Once I do that, the buttons to Clone or create a New profile are gone.

It seems like creating one AP profile per Access Point is not possible. Is this a limitation of the Balance One or some sort of UI bug?

Issue 2: I also tested “Controller Status / Access Point / AP Details” to force the channel, but it appears you can only change either the 5G channel or the 2.4G channel, but not both at once.

#4

Issue 3: this whole system seems really buggy. For example, I created a new AP Profile where channel selection is set to Auto. Set the 3 APs to the new profile, waited until it it worked. Then rebooted them. Then in the “Controller Status / Access Point / AP Details” I changed the 2.4GHz channel for each AP individually to channels 1, 6, 11. Then rebooted the APs.

Result: they are on channels 1, 8, and 2. Go back to the Balance One UI / Controller Status / Access Point, and look at the Configuration column which says “2.4GHz CH 1”, “2.4GHz CH 6” and “2.4GHz CH 11”.

So either I’m really not understanding this user interface, or else it’s just terribly buggy.

This should be simple: I have 3 APs, and I want to set them to channels 1, 6, and 11. How do I do it?

#5

From the Peplink Balance web site model comparison:

Balance 20/30 LTE/One/210/310 comes with AP Controller Standard, which supports up to two configuration profiles with multiple SSIDs, meaning that all APs will share the same configuration, and you can only manage APs on the local physical LAN.

Balance 305/380/580/710/1350/2500 comes with AP Controller Pro, which supports multiple configuration profiles with multiple SSIDs, and you can manage remote APs outside the local physical LAN.

You cannot have three active AP profiles with the AP One. If you want to do that I recommend programming directly on the AP itself, and not use remote management, at least for one of the devices.

To specify channels you build the profile. You certainly can specify the channel. For example:

ap%20controller%20profile
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After creating the second profile which includes a different channel, you assign the profile to the device you want by clicking the dot on the desired line, and then push “change ap profile”.

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If your devices are not actually transmitting on the desired channel, then recheck the two steps above.

2 Likes
#6

Thanks for your help, but with 3 APs your solution doesn’t work, since the Balance One only allows 2 profiles.

The more logical way would be to have a single AP Profile shared across all 3 APs, and then override the channel selection for two of them. But I’m still not understanding the UI.

Here is the example of a popup menu inside Balance One / AP / Controller Status / Access Point / [the pencil icon]

image
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Here is the Channel selection option which can be applied to a single AP:

Untitled%202

Notice that it’s a single popup menu, and you can choose either a fixed 2.4Ghz channel or a fixed 5Ghz channel, but apparently not both at once.

Is this intentional or some sort of UI bug? It seems like this should be two separate popup menus allowing you to choose fixed channels for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz.

#7

Hello @soylentgreen,
Did you know you could have the three and other multiple profiles using InControl2 with a mixture of VLANs & Tagging?
There are existing posts within the forum on setting up VLANs and using Device Tags within InControl2.
InControl2 is an execlent tool for setting up & managing your network with and also has some great monitoring tools.
If you also follow the guides on setting up InControl2 and the security (including using 2FA), then you will find your solution will also be very secure (better than just a username with a password).
Happy to Help,
Marcus :slight_smile:

1 Like
#8

I’m not interested in cloud-based configuration, but thank you for the suggestion. I’d like to understand the local configuration UI so I can either use it effectively or submit bug reports/feature requests if needed.

#9

Hello @soylentgreen,
There are many reasons people do not want to use the cloud, and we understand that.
You can still build out your solution with InControl2 and then disconnect the solution from the cloud once built, the setting will remain persistent in the devices, just you will lose the cloud management and cloud monitoring (try doing that with the majority of other vendors out there, we have tested many of them).

What you are experiencing is not a bug in either the Peplink Balance One or Pepwave AP One AC Mini, it is a limitation of the entry-level Balance One router you have (though it is a great router). To have more profiles you need to use a Balance model with greater internally capacity such as a Peplink Balance 380.

Have you spoken about your project requirement with your local certified Peplink Partner, did you by your equipment based on the system outcome requirements shared with them?

Happy to Help,
Marcus :slight_smile:

3 Likes
#10

This will be fixed for coming 8.0.2 Beta 2 or 8.0.2 RC firmware. Suppose you should have 2.4Ghz & 5Ghz selection for the channel settings.

2 Likes
#11

Thanks - having seperate channel override popups would be a nice feature and would simplify the setup, and I’m happy to test the new firmware once it’s available.

1 Like
#12

I’m eager to test this out - any idea when 8.0.2 beta will be available? Is there a way to sign up for email notifications of betas?

#13

8.0.2 beta firmware is ready.

1 Like
#14

Thank you - as far as I can tell, 8.0.2 beta 1 does not have the UI changes yes.

Waiting for beta 2 / RC 2.

#15

I’m using 8.0.2 RC2 now, and I’m pleased with the UI changes: It now allows separate 2.4GHz and 5GHz channel overrides:

image
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This makes the solution simple: create a single AP Profile and use that will all 3 devices. Then, I can simply override the channels on a per-device basis.

I like it! Thanks for adding this feature - really apprecaite the wonderful support Peplink offers.

4 Likes
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