topic Re: Do I need to change any settings in the Hive Manager or AP's to increase speed after we have bumped up our bandwidth? in Aerohive Migrated Content

Do I need to change any settings in the Hive Manager or AP's to increase speed after we have bumped up our bandwidth?

AnonymousM — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 02:11:58 GMT

We increased our district speed last year from 100 Mbps to 1GB. I was just wondering if there is any setting in the Hive Manager or AP's that needs to be changed? We aren't getting very good speeds from our WIFI network. And some of the clients are wanting to connect to AP's far away instead of the one that's in their room.

Re: Do I need to change any settings in the Hive Manager or AP's to increase speed after we have bumped up our bandwidth?

samantha_lynn — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 03:41:44 GMT

To start with I'd like to take a look at your Radio Frequency environment to make sure we aren't running in to packet damage, which could affect your speeds. There are some settings that can affect speed such as giving priority to certain types of client traffic, or to client traffic over management traffic, that kind of thing. However it depends a lot on the type of environment you have, how many active client you have on average (at the site and per AP), and what kind of data you are passing.

If you could send me tech data from an AP, I can take a look at the Radio Frequency situation and the running configuration to get an idea of what we're working with now.

As for the clients that are connecting to APs farther away, I would recommend adjusting your Radio and Rates settings to require a stronger signal between a client device and AP before connection/roaming occurs. If you can let me know which HiveManager platform you are using (see the types below for gathering tech data), I can give you more specific instructions on adjusting the Radio and Rates settings.

To get tech data using HiveManager Classic (myhive.aerohive.com) go to

Monitor> Select the check box next to the AP> Utilities> Get Tech Data.

To get tech data using HiveManager (formerly NG, cloud.aerohive.com) go to

Tools> Utilities> Get tech data> Check the box next to the device> Get tech data (blue button at the top of the page this time).

This guide reviews how to get tech data from the CLI of the AP in case that's easier:

https://thehivecommunity.aerohive.com/s/article/Collecting-Tech-Data-via-CLI

Re: Do I need to change any settings in the Hive Manager or AP's to increase speed after we have bumped up our bandwidth?

AnonymousM — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 03:56:13 GMT

Ok thanks! I use the hive manager classic. I found where to get the tech data, but it downloaded to a bunch of zip files on my desktop. And they just open into more zip files. I'm not sure that's the right format you need.

Re: Do I need to change any settings in the Hive Manager or AP's to increase speed after we have bumped up our bandwidth?

samantha_lynn — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 19:18:55 GMT

If you can just email me the zip file I can go from there, my email is communityhelp@aerohive.com. For the Radio and Rates Settings, you'll want to go to Configuration> Open the Network Policy> Open the SSID> Expand Radio and Rates. I would recommend turning 1-9 to N/A for the 2.4GHz settings, and 6&9 to N/A for the 5GHz settings, leaving the MCS rates alone. Again, these settings will require that the client device meet a stronger minimum signal before it can connect to or roam away from an AP to a new AP. That should help with the clients connecting to distant APs rather than the ones closer to them.

Re: Do I need to change any settings in the Hive Manager or AP's to increase speed after we have bumped up our bandwidth?

samantha_lynn — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 23:26:50 GMT

Thank you for that tech data. I'm not seeing any significant interference, which is great news! Would you be able to run an iPerf so we can get a look at the current speeds? This guide reviews how to set up and run the iPerf for reference- https://thehivecommunity.aerohive.com/s/article/iPerf-Speed-Test

Re: Do I need to change any settings in the Hive Manager or AP's to increase speed after we have bumped up our bandwidth?

AnonymousM — Thu, 14 Mar 2019 04:50:36 GMT

That IS great news! I didnt get a chance to run the iPerf, but I may be going back over there tonight if I get a chance.

I changed the 1-9 on the 2.4GHz and 6-9 on the 5GHz and left the MCS settings alone. Did I need to change any of the other numbers past 9? 11 on the 2.4 and 12 and 24 on 5GHz says basic. The rest say optional. Should I leave those like they are?

Re: Do I need to change any settings in the Hive Manager or AP's to increase speed after we have bumped up our bandwidth?

samantha_lynn — Thu, 14 Mar 2019 19:05:12 GMT

We can turn the 5GHz 24 to optional, but otherwise that all sounds good. 'Basic' here means this is a data rate that the client needs to meet at minimum, while 'optional' is a data rate that the AP can offer but it's required for connection.

Re: Do I need to change any settings in the Hive Manager or AP's to increase speed after we have bumped up our bandwidth?

AnonymousM — Fri, 15 Mar 2019 01:44:03 GMT

Ok, I will do that after school when students dismiss. I am happy to report that since fixing those settings, our school was able to do state testing with chrome books this morning with NO trouble!! And when we got on the manager, it was showing chrome books connecting to the AP's of the room they were in or a neighboring room. Nothing crazy far away. Thank you so much for your help!!!

Re: Do I need to change any settings in the Hive Manager or AP's to increase speed after we have bumped up our bandwidth?

AnonymousM — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 01:19:28 GMT

Hi Sam! It's me again. 

I have a question. I put the radio frequency settings that you recommended in one of our schools last year and things have been working pretty good. However, lately at one of our schools devices are grabbing from further away access points than they should causing them to have weak signals and kicking off eventually or just freezing or going really slow. Can I narrow down those setting a little more to help ensure that they grab the closest access point to them? Thank you!

Re: Do I need to change any settings in the Hive Manager or AP's to increase speed after we have bumped up our bandwidth?

samantha_lynn — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 02:16:24 GMT

Absolutely, the best settings to adjust for that would be to disable the lower data rates in the SSID settings. This will require a stronger connection between the AP and the client device, which means devices will be connecting to APs nearer to them with a stronger signal.

You can find the data rates by going to Configuration> Open the Network Policy> Open the SSID> Expand the Radio and Rates section below the Optional Settings section header. If all the rates currently say "Basic" or "Optional" I would start by turning 1-9 to N/A for the 2.4GHz settings, and 6&9 to N/A for the 5GHz settings, leaving the MCS rates alone. If some are already set to N/A, I'd recommend turning the next one or two rates to N/A, pushing out a configuration update, and then waiting about an hour to see if you see any improvements.

The only downside to disabling some data rates is that if we go too far we'll start rejecting healthy connections so doing it a couple at a time is a good way to find the right balance.

Re: Do I need to change any settings in the Hive Manager or AP's to increase speed after we have bumped up our bandwidth?

AnonymousM — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 03:28:51 GMT

Ok, so I already have 1-9 on the 2.4 set to N/A, and 6&9 on the 5GHz. This part I’m confused about “I’d recommend turning the next one or two rates to N/A”
Do you mean like 11 on the 2.4 is on basic and 12 on the 5GHz is on basic. Do you mean turn them to N/A?? Here’s a screenshot of my current settings

Nikki Williams
Media and Technology Department
411 W. Poplar St.
Harrisburg, IL. 62946
618-253-7637 ext. 1013

Re: Do I need to change any settings in the Hive Manager or AP's to increase speed after we have bumped up our bandwidth?

bpowers — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 03:51:36 GMT

Nikki,

You have to have at a minimum 1 data rate set as basic. The basic data rates are rates that must be supported by the client to associate/authenticate to the AP. The lowest of the basic rates (if multiple are set) is what the beacon frames are transmitted at (the SSIDs that you see in the air). So as you change that basic rate to a higher rate, the distance that SSID is able to be heard shrinks and by nature the serviceable area of the APs RF footprint. This is one way to keep devices off of distant APs.

So if you currently have 11 Mbps on the 2.4 GHz side and 12 Mbps on the 5 GHz side set as basic, you can set the next rate up. I actually would leave them at 12 Mbps and not go up any higher as a good rule of thumb and try to figure out why devices aren't roaming to nearby APs. The 6, 12, 24 Mbps data rates are by the 802.11 standard to be used as basic rates as they all support different modulation methods. Most all vendors allow setting any rate as basic/mandatory though, so it can and should still work, but back in the past, some devices didn't operate well if a non-standard (6,12,24) data rate was set as basic.

Roaming is a decision that is almost exclusively done by the client device. So if it joins a far away AP, it must have done it for a reason. Congestion, retries, errors, etc. on it's current AP are possible reasons. Unfortunately, determining this can be very challenging. The Aerohive events/alarms might shed some light as to why they moved. If you have load balancing enabled, that too can cause clients to get moved to possibly less than ideal APs.