Automatic Frequency Coordination(AFC) in MR30.7+

ShawnHu
Meraki Employee
Meraki Employee

Automatic Frequency Coordination(AFC) in MR30.7+

As the feature announced in 6GHz Standard Power Wi-Fi is now GA with AFC, we are happy to share the both Meraki Launchpad🚀 and Cisco Meraki Platform has incorporate the AFC feature. 

 

What is AFC and why Wi-Fi on 6GHz needs it? 

Automatic Frequency Coordination (AFC) is a system that protects the licensed services on 1,200MHz of spectrum from Wi-Fi interference by coordinating spectrum sharing with these 6 GHz incumbents. In order to effectively coordinate spectrum sharing Wi-Fi 6E APs must operate at either Standard Power or Low Power operation to remain in compliance with the FCC. Since APs on Standard Power mode operate at a higher power level, they can potentially interfere with the licensed 6 GHz services operating within the spectrum. As a result, they are required to operate under the control of AFC provider. The AFC provider serves as an independent central entity that allocates the channel and power levels based on the geolocation of the access points.

 

To demo this feature: 

  1. Access either Meraki Launchpad🚀 or Cisco Meraki Platform demo environments;
  2. Navigate to the network San Francisco - APC and then page Wireless > Access points
  3. APs with GNSS tag are either equipped with an external GPS USB module or an internal GPS module. Other APs without GPS module will derive the geolocation info from the neighbor AP with a satellite signal.
  4. Select any AP and verify the geolocation information under AFC tab.

 

ShawnHu_0-1719622580224.png

 

 

Resources:

Document: Automatic Frequency Coordination

For access information of the above demo environments, please refer to our post Introducing Meraki Demo Platforms

4 Replies 4
KarstenI
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

And in Germany (ETSI-Land), we don’t even know if it will happen at all.

cmr
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

Is AFC part of the 31.x train currently in beta?  I ask as one of my CW9163Es alerted that it didn't have height set, until I followed your instructions, but the other didn't...

ShawnHu
Meraki Employee
Meraki Employee

@cmr That's a good question. As my last check-in with product team, unfortunately the current MR31.x beta release doesn't officially support AFC at this moment. Things might change with the future iterations. 

cmr
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

Thanks @ShawnHu I'll look at changing my test network to 30.7 then for now.

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