Hey everyone,
I have two APs running with a controller.
I am reading that “Auto Optimization” is a troublemaker feature and leaving things in Auto is the worst thing for your wifi.
I have had a few experiences where auto makes things worse.
Does this feature get better with time?
Do I need to give up on it and just start using channel 11? Doesn’t that make wifi worse for my neighbours? Should we live together using Auto, in harmony?
Use what works for you. Auto does a scan and adjusts the settings accordingly, but sometimes it gets things wrong and if it does turn it off.
Gotta agree with Tom. Use it once for a couple of hours, write down what it chooses, and evaluate how sensible that seems. If it makes sense, turn auto optimize off. Otherwise, do it again. (See below for the usable channels. You want each AP on a separate set of channel pairs. If you have several APs, then you will need to reuse some channels. You want APs as far apart as possible on the same channel.(s).)
However, with two APs, I’d probably optimize it myself. On 2.4Ghz, set channel width to VHT20 and scan for interference from neighbors. If there isn’t any, put one AP on channel 1 and the other on channel 6. If there is interference, pick the two out of 1, 6, 11 that have the least interference. Do not use any other channel on 2.4 Ghz. On 5Ghz, set channel width to VHT40 and scan for interference. Choose the two best from 36-40, 149-153, and 157-161. (I try to stay with the two lower pairs.)
[There are a few situations where auto optimize maybe makes sense. If you have a lot of roaming users that tend to cluster, e.g., students in a lunchroom, then you might test auto optimize. Just don’t expect miracles (or even something workable.) If you have APs that are sometimes on and sometimes off, for whatever reason, optimize may make sense. I saw this happen with a client that had a coffee shop next door. The three APs were off when the shop wasn’t open and they were overloaded mid-morning. We tried to negotiate channel usage with them, but no one in the coffee shop had any idea about the wifi and didn’t know who installed it!]
thanks for the channel recos
Do you opt for lower channels for better permeation of walls?
Propagation loss due to building materials is similar for 2.4GHz and 5GHz (if the material affects RF, it will attenuate both ranges similarly). The loss at higher frequencies is more due to the nature of RF (Friis’ Equation). So you probably won’t see much difference between 2.4GHz channel 1 and 11 since they’re pretty close in frequency.