How many clients can you have on a XR2 vs SR2? I think our SR2 can probably hold about 30 clients with 1M up/down connections. But around 35 connections everything starts to lose quality. So we have an XR-2 but have not deployed it yet. Will this be able to hold more clients or is it just a higher mW card? I was told that it could hold more clients. What is everyone’s/anyone’s experience with the XR-2s?
-Sincerely,
DesertAdmin
no it wont hold more customers since tx power doesnt effect no of customers.
I understand additional mW power. This is suppose to be able to handle more concurrent connections. But I want to know how many. Have you used the XR-2 in your network? If so how has it performed vs a 1W with CM-9.
-Sincerely,
DesertAdmin
Has any one used the XR-2? Well I thought maybe I would fish around before I deploy this I guess we will deploy it and I will give you all an update late in a month or so. Thanks
-Sincerely,
DesertAdmin
It is a better card, but it won’t magically give you more bandwidth. You need to sectorize.
I am not concerned with bandwidth.
The number I can have connected to any Atheros card currently is only about 34. After that all connected clients start to experience serious radio problems like lower Pthroughput readings and lower CCQ. We have the bandwidth for the sector to hold more than 34 connected clients. Even if I had everyone at 1Mb this would not be a problem but I do not and there is a problem. So with the XR-2 how many people can connect to the sector.
Are you able to hold more connected clients per sector? If so how many have you seen at most? I have seen posts that are obviously not true of 120 people connected to one atheros r52h card. I think what they meant to say was that one router board with three sectors could do this, which is true. What I am asking is 1 routerboard 1 card 1 sector: how many people can comfortably connect to this card?
Any advice would be great thanks.
-Sincerely,
DesertAdmin
Ok I think people are not reading what I am asking here. Not bandwidth connections or mWs. How many customers can simply connect to an AP (access Point) with an XR-2?
-DesertAdmin
We are reading it, you are not understanding our answers.
You are asking if the XR2 can somehow handle more customers and it cannot. You are having low CCQ and performance issues due to the fact that you have more customers on a single radio than a single radio can handle. It comes down to the laws of physics at this point. You have lots of RF bandwidth being used, all directed at a single source. The single card cannot supply each CPE, so when the radio is overloaded, when it is busy sending or receiving, the other CPE’s continue to transmit. The AP cannot process this because it is simply overwhelmed, so the CPE retransmits. Once you have this happening over several CPE’s to a single AP, it just becomes noise and can effectively drown out what the AP is attempting to receive.
You do not have enough RF bandwidth to support that many customers on a single channel, single AP, regardless of how much tx power the AP card has or the receive sensitivity.
It is not that we don’t understand your question, it is that you are asking the wrong question. You need to sectorize, add more antennas and more AP’s to handle the number of clients you currently have.
A more powerful engine in a truck will not make more stuff fit in the bed, which is comparable to what you’re asking.
So by increasing the CCQ of the CPEs will effectively allow better connections; correct? Then by the XR-2 pushing more mW to get a better signal to a CPE and by the XR-2 being able to ground out with RF ESD/EMP immunity then the card should by specs be able to clean up and transmit better to the CPE. Which to me means better connections and more “radio bandwidth”.
Sooooooo Do you use the XR-2? If so have you seen better CCQ with better Pthroughput because this is a better card? With it being a better card do you see more than 34 connected CPEs?
-DesertAdmin
Yes.
Sort of. The cleaner connection will improve the number of CPEs connecting at a higher rate, this will help a bit, but not fix your problem.
No.
No. I haven’t used the XR2. I have used the SR9 and XR9. They are higher quality cards, more TX power and better ESD resistance. That has absolutely nothing to do with the number of clients supported, and boosting TX power will not fix the capacity issue nor the low CCQ in this situation.
You need to add capacity by adding sectors or another AP running on a different frequency entirely. You may be able to buy yourself some time by using a 40MHz wide channel, but in all likelihood, if everyone can connect, you will still have some issues.
Thanks for the prompt responses. This is exactly what I needed to know. This explanation makes much more sense. I think our problem is noise. Even if we reduce the number of CPEs we have bad CCQ I think this will improve some of the CCQs which will allow me to migrate a few to another sector we have on the tower.
The current setup is on the edge of town and it is a 1W amp with a CM9 with a cavity filter and it is just performing horribly. The number of connected clients on all of our towers sectors seem to only handle about 34 connected users. Of course we have sectors that ar just a 350mW or a 400mW card but they just do not like to have more then 34 connected clients. I think even if we had everyone in an optimal area we still would not see much more then 34.
How do you get more than 34 per sector. Does ANI help at all? Is there a connection setting limit? I understand that if I offered less speed I may be able to handle more. But lets just say I have a DS3 or even an OC3 and I wanted to do 1M/1M is it possible with one sector? Well that is for at least 50 CPEs?
This just does not make sense as to why a miniPCI can not hold that many and why haven’t any one made one better? Or are we all waiting for a MiMo version (802.11N).
-Sincerely,
DesertAdmin
Standard 54Mb connection actually puts out around 30Mb, so to be certain everyone can have 1Mb at the same time, you don’t need to go over 30 customers per radio. Of course, everyone is not on at the same time, but with P2P as it is now, odds are very good you will have at least 8-10 running 24/7.
I’d take the amp out of there and run an R52H with a short piece of coax.
You should be able to fit 50 per radio, but that is less than ideal.
XR-2 is rocking!
Well it has been in place for about 2 weeks now and there has been no problems. The one client connection that is really far away is the only one polluting their own connection. It use to look like this; one bad seed and all connected customers would have horrible CCQ and large ACKs. Now with the XR-2 properly ground everyone has consistent PTHROUGHPUT ACK and beautiful CCQ. The XR-2 extended my range and cleared up all polluters that were hoping onto the hotspot.
I highly recommend getting the XR-2 drop your amps and properly ground your XR-2. This will allow you to sleep at night.
-Sincerely,
DesertAdmin