6GHz transmit power

[DevOps_RC]

Good Morning, We are about to enable a public access WPA3 SSID on our infrastructure, and as such the 6GHz radios will now be utilised on our C9162 & C9164 APs (internal antennas). I tend to leave the APs associated with the same Default Power profile and just tweak it slightly on 5Ghz, to disable 802.11b devices from connecting.

I noticed that by default the 2.4GHz has a transmit power range of 5-30, 5GHz has a transmit power range of 8-30, but the 6GHz has a transmit power range of 1-8. Apart from reducing the power requirements for the AP and the regulations regarding power levels on the 6GHz range (Diagram at the bottom), is there any reason not to increase the transmit power range too 1-24, while still allowing the APs to adjust power levels automatically? I appreciate that increasing the power will increase the coverage at the expense of data rates. Our 5Ghz APs tend to be using transmit power in the range of 15-18dBm, so I'd expect for the 6Ghz to get the same coverage, they would need to be in a similar power transmit range, maybe 16-19....Anyone have any experience?

[cmr · Accepted solution]

On my network with CW916x APs the default settings for auto power are 8-30 as below:

The one AP that I have 6GHz enabled on has chosen 16dB, which is similar but slightly higher than the 5GHz radio as you'd expect:

[DevOps_RC]

Thanks for the quick reply. Maybe someone 'accidently adjusted' the power rating for 6Ghz for the network I checked earlier. I created a new network, associated an AP and  checked the power rating...and turns out someone did (Finger pointing to commence shortly).

Thanks for confirming the expected default power range.

[GIdenJoe]

I guess we need some end point manufacturer info about what the typical maximum Tx powers will be of laptops, smartphones etc...

If you know the FCC ID of a certain device you could lookup the documentation.  I have been looking at tests for apple products and I do find stuff like antenna gains and transmitpowers.  But you really need to look hard.

[PhilipDAth]

Interesting.  I use a custom RF profile rather than the defaults on my network - so the default RF profiles have never been changed.

On both my indoor and outdoor profile, the 6Ghz was set to use a minimum and maximum of 30.  I then used the "Reset to Meraki defaults" option in both profiles, and they are now show this:

Weird.

[DevOps_RC]

Thats interesting. I checked the settings of the new network I created yesterday and they had the following settings:

I then clicked on 'Restore to Meraki Default' and ...the 6GHz was set too power range 0-8??:

Then went and checked that the country the network was assigned (automatically) was UK, didn't make a change, and then checked the power range values again, and they have changed in the background??..:

I can only guess there is a slight delay with the 'defaults' being applied, and then them being adjusted depending on country network is assigned to.