50 APs - 50 SSID's (1 SSID per AP) - How to best do it?

[TomMc]

Hi, college dorm with 50 apartments. Want to do 1 AP per apartment and each AP to have their own SSID.  With the limitation of 15 SSIDs on a Meraki MX, are there any ways to achieve this?  Multiple vLANs? Only need 1 SSID per AP (2 at most).  

Thank you,

[BlakeRichardson]

You would almost have to create one network per apartment which would be a lot of work.

What is the requirement around seperate SSID? Could you not use 802.1x or iPSK to see who is connected?

[TomMc]

Thanks Blake.  I don't know the requirement (working with the construction team not the college who is requiring it). 

With this quantity 50, for example, would it be less work to create 5 or so networks and 10 SSID's per network then assign a unique SSID to each particular AP?  (a lot less work to create only 5 networks vs 50 networks?) 

[rhbirkelund]

Why exactly do you need to create 50 SSIDs, one per dorm room? Why does each room need to have their own?

[rhbirkelund]

If it is because you need to separate each student in their own network, without them being able to reach eachother over the network, I think you should probably look in to using WiFi Personal Network - WPN.

Essentially it's iPSK, where you create one SSID, and assign different group policies according to which PSK is being used.

[TomMc]

Yes, on the 1 per dorm room (apartment). Per my above comment, it is a requirement of the college, not exactly sure why but asking us to implement it this way.  

As mentioned to Blake above- 'With this quantity 50, for example, would it be less work to create 5 or so networks and 10 SSID's per network then assign a unique SSID to each particular AP?  (a lot less work to create only 5 networks vs 50 networks?)'  

Appreciate any thoughts / guidance.

[rhbirkelund]

In my opinion you should push back on the requirement to provide one SSID per dorm room. This will resullt in a very poor Wireless network experience due to the many SSIDs wasting airtime. It is up there right next to "APs in the hallways for dorms/hotels".

As mentionend, I think you should look into using WPN for the deployment.

[Purroy]

Having 5 different networks (with 10SSIDs and 10APs in each network) will result in a really bad solution. AutoRF works by coordinating transmission power and channel assignment with the APs in a single network. This design will severely break AutoRF and it is a bad design overall. 

For this scenario we have WPN which will solve the challenges that the customers on this type of spaces have and is a robust and secure solution. 

Friends don’t let friends do bad designs. Please educate the customer on why this path is a horrible idea and the benefits and simplicity of WPN. 

[KarstenI · Accepted solution]

As @rhbirkelund said. This is what WPN was developed for.