Overview

 

Wireless connection is susceptible to environment interference and it may cause the unstable connection or SSID disappearance. Especially for 2.4G radio, it would be influenced by much interference from other wireless devices in our daily environment like Bluetooth devices (i.e. wireless speakers, mouse, etc.), microwave oven and USB interface. In this case, we need to do optimization to make Omada EAPs work in less interference and clearer channel or increase transmission power and bandwidth to get better performance.

 

We can manually change the working channel to one with less interference according to results of radio scanning APPs or tools built-in Omada Controller, or just increase the transmit power for better signal. In Omada Controller, we have AI WLAN optimization to do that for us. When you customize the band you want to optimize then initiate the function, the Controller will send the command to EAP to do radio scanning with a lot of probes to find which channel and how much power to use will make client devices get the best wireless network experience under current circumstance. Besides, Omada Controller will also give you the result how much better you’ll gain through this optimization with percentages.

 

 

Principle

 

1. Channel and Channel Width Optimization

 

802.11 n/ac protocols support to bind two or more channels together to increase network bandwidth. Although the channel binding technology can improve the bandwidth, the wider channel also means more frequency resources are occupied and it may increase the wireless interference.

 

1) For 2.4GHz radio, we can use 14 channels (EU version supports 1-13 channels, US version supports 1-11 channels), but there are only 3 non-overlapping channels in fact. We recommend to use channel 1,6,11 when deploying 2.4GHz network (with 20MHz Channel Width).

 

 

2) For 5GHz radio, it has more channel resources which are all non-overlapping (with 20MHz channel width). We recommend to use different channels when deploying 5G network (with 20MHz Channel Width).

 

 

A suitable solution to reduce the interference is that:

For 2.4G radio, use 1/6/11 channels alternately with 20MHz channel width (HT20).

For 5G radio, use different channels alternately with 20MHz channel width (HT20).

 

       

 

2. Transmit power Optimization

 

TP-Link EAP series allow customer to select different level Tx Power: Low, Medium, High, and Custom. A larger Tx power is not always better, because larger Tx power also means more interference to the adjacent APs.

In the actual wireless environment, if the distance between adjacent AP is much close(less than 15 meters), it’s recommended to decrease the Tx power for reducing the wireless interference. For example, if the Tx power is 25dBm, we can decrease it to 22dBm first for checking. If the wireless connection is still not stable, we can decrease the Tx power again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tools

If you want to optimize the wireless network for customers to get better experience, you could do it by manual optimization or AI WLAN optimization. Besides, Omada Controller provides a tool to detect threats in current circumstances which will might help to protect your network from being attacked.

 

 

• Manual Optimization

 

With third-party APPs

 

1. Download one radio scanning APP on your phone, here we take Wi-Fi Analyzer as example > connect to the SSID you want to optimize > open the APP.

 

 

The SSID marked in the image above is the EAP your phone has connected to and the list below are SSIDs surrounding you. This page will show SSID name, broadcasting device MAC address, signal strength, country code, working channel, middle frequency, approximate distance, speed, IP address your phone gets and encryption method.

 

2. Go to Channel Rating page, you will see evaluation results of channels with stars, the more stars, the better. You can switch band on right top and choose the best channel for EAP or put EAP where your devices could mostly get good signal within your range of activity.

 

  

 

 

 

With Omada Controller Built-in tool

 

Note: not all models of EAP support RF Scanning tool.

 

1. Go to Controller > Devices > choose EAP supported AI WLAN optimization > Tools > click Scan.

 

 

 

2. After several minutes, you’ll get scanning results of 2.4GHz and 5GHz.

 

 

The lighter in color means less interference, so according to this picture, we could see channel 100 is better than 140, so we can manually change channel to 100 or other channels with this kind of color for better network performance.

 

Note: Technically, after optimization you’ll get better network performance. However, due to vulnerability and too many kinds of radios around us, SSID is easy to get interfered and sometimes difficult to improve. Please try different methods and more times.

 

 

 

• AI WLAN Optimization

 

1. Go to Controller > Settings > Wireless Network > AI WLAN Optimization > click Deploy Now.

 

 

Note:

1. If your controller firmware version is v5.9 and below, and the EAP's firmware doesn’t support power optimization, please do not enable Automatic Power Optimization, otherwise, you'll get "general error" prompt.

2. If your firmware doesn’t support AI WLAN Optimization at all, or your EAP is in mesh, it will be listed in the Excluded APs List below.

3. If you don’t want to change any settings on specific EAP, you could Add it into Excluded APs List to avoid being modified.

 

 

2. Generally, after 10 min (sometimes it takes long to 30 min), the whole AI WLAN Optimization will be done > prompt message will tell you the process is done and how much performance you will gain through this optimization process.

 

 

Click Details and you'll see what operations are taken to make your network work better.

 

 

Note: once this optimization is done, the recommended settings are automatically applied to all EAPs you selected and the button Apply Recommended Settings is inoperable; if you want to keep the original settings, you could click the Apply Previous Settings to change back.

 

 

3. Click Optimization Log on the top, you could see all optimization records here, you could see details of successful records and choose to delete all records.

 

 

Verification: before you execute AI WLAN optimization, you could manually change all EAPs’ channels to stay the same, minimize channel width, then after that, you’ll see these channels are steered to different channels to make EAPs work with less interference and higher performance.

 

 

 

• Rogue AP

 

Omada Controller can use scanning tools to find APs that has been installed in a local network without explicit authorization from a network administrator.

 

1. Go to Controller > Insight > Rogue APs > click Scan.

 

 

 

2. After several minutes, you’ll get results below, it might help you find hostile devices through information provided.