what would you recommend for an external area of around 700 wifi users. An outdoor theater. Would you advice a 1 mANTBox 15s + 1 MikroTik mANTBox 2 12s
would that handle all connections fine? Would 3-4 wapacs handle it better?
Maybe 2x MikroTik mANTBox 52 15s ? I am just not sure that 60 degrees on 5ghz would cover the whole area.
And mANTBox handle nice mobile phones and tablets or is it only for links?
What experience do you have with areas with such an amount of wifi users? I am asked to drop mikrotik for other brands just for the wireless part and keep the mikrotik for routing and switching but I am trying to keep mikrotik everywhere… I am allergic to other brands
Any shared experiences would be highly appreciated!
MikroTik´s IEEE 802.11ac access points are not meant to be used in high density situations. This situation may or may not change if MikroTik has a new stable wireless drivers some day.
What is your budget for your project?
(Personally I use Aruba AP-535, AP-555 indoor for class rooms and lecture halls. For outdoor I started replacing MikroTik wAP ac with Grandstream GWN7630LR)
Regarding the amount of access points, you should get 10 to 15+ access points. (Don’t enable 2.4GHz on every access point)
To handle it from the theoretical approach … and trying to do it with Mikrotik, … some thoughts
The angle in the specs is about the -3 dBm strength point. In practice the usable angle is much wider. So is the interference domain wider also.
The antenna gain of the AP is very important. Not to have a stronger TX (that’s limited by regulatory domain rules) but to receive the weak mobile phone signals. 6dBi doubles the usable distance.
700 used smartphones? How many are expected to really use heavy traffic like streaming? I see 10% in my case (which is a totally different case).
one mANTBox is very limited as access capacity. At least have 2 mANTBox 52 15s , but maybe if the budget (and cabling) allow have 3 to 4 AP’s, (2x mANTBox 52 15s, 2x mANTBox 15s) positioned at opposite sites. This gives 6 radio’s to cover 700 connections, not balanced, but still location will define signal strength, and most devices prefer 5 GHz. (There is not enough bandwidth in the 2.4 GHz band for 4 non-overlapping 1-6-11 channels (except 1-5-9-13 could be used in some area’s)). Put all 5 GHz AP’s on different non-overlapping outdoor channels.
If you have many very active users, you will need more AP’s. The NetMetal ac2 has better omnidirectional antenna gain than the wAP ac (Nothing wrong with the wAP ac, I use 20 wAP ac in my case, between houses)
Bpwl
I respect that you really demonstrate a deep understanding of wifi.
But when you step out of theory… There is no way this won’t end badly for this guy, if he tries to do this with Mikrotik’s current WAPs. They just are not up to the task and you can’t out tweak it.
I would love to be wrong… But I have seen it and watched other make the same mistake.
High density and Mikrotik as wifi is a recipe for disaster
I wish it wasn’t.
And I am pissed Everytime I open caps-man and think… “Damn I wish I could use that!”
But experience and confirmation from Mikrotik have, “set my lines I do not cross”.
I indeed can only give some theoretical concepts and thoughts here. Too much depends on the local situation and on the real use case, like needed capacity per client.
If it goes above the estimated 10% simultaneous active users competing for bandwidth then Mikrotik indeed misses the bells and whistles to make it go smoothly.
Many other brands will get in trouble also if not properly designed and managed for high density. Reading hint: https://howwirelessworks.com/wp-content/uploads/Aruba_VHD_VRD_Theory_Guide.pdf
This were my thoughts how to tackle it if it should be done with Mikrotik. (And i’ll miss the airtime fairness, band steering, per connection power level, proper massive aggregation (larger A_MPDU), smart MCS adjustment, beamforming, ac wave 2 features, …), but at least it gives some approach with what is implemented in Mikrotik.
@bpwl - thank you very much for the reading hint, a rare thorough review of the limits and best practices of high density wlans (and all other wlans, too). I am trying to increase the throughput in my rv park / campsite and have come to similar conclusions as in the guides.
Well OK. I’m just looking on the Internet for guidance. But I do like to learn from those really large installations to understand what the limits are, and then from that information project the relevant part on a large installation design. Here the more practical documents referenced in the Theory Guide. (But you need the theory to know what’s relevant.) https://community.arubanetworks.com/browse/articles/blogviewer?blogkey=7bc8710b-bc01-4229-a170-41f8f5a5e6f8
Look at it from another perspective. If you look at MikroTik´s homepage: Do you find any sentences like: “Our access points support up to xxx clients per access point?” or “Our access points are perfect for your high density areas?” => No…
You can do it whit MT, but You wont like what I will say.
That is a high density network and you can use stadium AP deployment method. (don’t quote me on name) Every AP can handle around 25 users. You count 25 chairs in cycle and deploy AP under them. Adjust TX gain, channel etc so on AP handles around that number of clients. 700 users means that you will need around 28 APs. In Latvia that would cost around 1750eur in APs (new wap ac) and 440eur in poe switches, total 2200 eur in devices. Not including wires and labour costs.
This is how it is. If you look up Cisco documentation or any Aruba documentation, AP datasheets, you will see that they recommend client count per AP around number I gave you. That number will vary based on needs and configuration.
If you need Mikrotik WiFi wait for AX lineup, current Mikrotik devices will be unable to run the newest and greatest WiFi drivers when ROS 7 stable gets released condemning them to legacy drivers because it requires at least 256mb of RAM.
