High density AP Deployment minimum data rate/single strength

[Andre_Brits_Kan]

We are in the process of deploying wifi in public areas across the city.
At some public areas we get on average 200 to 300 people walking past a single AP.
The users might not be using the wifi service but their client devices still automatically associates to the AP, resulting in each AP having +- a 100 associated clients at any one time = poor service.
How do we prevent clients with a -75/-80 dbm signal strength from associating with the AP?
Or do we restrict the number of users per AP?

[Ronald_Dvorak]

Hi Jorge,

no you don't need to enable probe suppression.

-Ron

[Raffi]

Min basic rate a good idea, and perhaps lower client session times.

Articles for load balancing and band steering:

https://gtacknowledge.extremenetworks.com/articles/How_To/How-to-set-up-a-Band-Preference-Group-Band...

https://gtacknowledge.extremenetworks.com/articles/How_To/How-to-set-up-a-Client-Balancing-AP-load-g...

[Jorge_Cota]

Hello Deborak.

A query. I want to improve roaming in my WLAN

If I set a minimum basic rate on a radio, it is mandatory to enable Probe Suppression ????

[Simon_Vosper]

Andre

How do you know the numbers of associated clients is the cause of the poor performance?

A number of attached clients should not degrade performance too much. Its the bandwidth and airtime they take up when they are sending or receiving data that would cause a problem.

In certain conditions it would not be unreasonable for an AP to support 100 clients that are concurrently transmitting data and still provide the client/application with the throughput it needs to function, especially if that's just web traffic.