Issues with WiFi Meshing when hard coding channels

Product Discussion Pepwave AP & Surf
1

We recently installed a WiFi network using 7x AP One AX’s. Four were wired and three relied on meshing using the 2.4HGhz band. This was all working until the client mentioned performance was not great. So we sent out our WiFi engineer and he came back with some recommendations such as splitting SSID into distinct 2.4GHz and 5GHz ones, 20 + 40 channel width for 2.4 & 5 G respectively and hard coding the channels to avoid overlap; the WiFi config is device managed, not central from InControl.

Once these changes were in place one of the AP’s refused to mesh. I later re-jigged the 2.4GHz channels and then all three would not mesh. Reverting to auto channel assignment allowed them all to mesh again. Is this expected behaviour?

2

The mesh all share a channel. Hard set each AP to the same channel and it should work The way you are expecting.

de facto statement - running a wire will always be better than a mesh. You give up a radio on every AP to implement it.

I did a post with my findings when I was messing around with the mesh and the Wi-Fi channels. I ended up with 5 APs - 3 wired and two “meshed”. I think you will need to narrow your channel width to prevent overlapping channels. I was able to use the wider channels because of fewer devices.

you may have to give up your 2.4 band - but with 7 APs - I imagine you will have full coverage 5 GHz.