AI-RRM making dubious decisions

[cmr]

I have a network with 3 active APs in it and as you can see AI-RRM has disabled the 2.4GHz band on one of the APs.  There is zero interference from other people as I am lucky enough to not have any neighbours within 60m from any of the APs:

Ia anyone else using AI-RRM and how is it behaving for you?

[RaphaelL]

Yup samething here. 2 APs next to each other in my lab. AP1 channel 1 AP2 Channel 6. AI-RRM decided to turn off one of the radio.

[cmr]

I hadn't realised that AI-RRM was not early access any more so in order to maintain license compliance I turned it off.  Interestingly the 2.4GHz radio on the AP is still off and marked to be made as such by AI-RRM...  Not sure how to turn it back on without manually overriding the profile which seems odd!

[cmr]

I found the event log, looks like the low client count leads it to disable the radio, coverage is not 100% overlap though...

[RWelch]

I used the AI-RMM beta until 5/13/25 and had all green (i.e., <5%) packet loss for all active radios.  I manually turned off the 2.4GHz on two APs intentionally (both with and without AI-RMM enabled).

Without making any other changes - other than turning off the beta AI-RMM, now have 3 that are in the amber category after AI-RMM not being used (seen as in the above AI-RMM off).  Sure, I felt AI-RMM improved the overall network performance but is it worth upgrading the subscription for that little benefit?  Perhaps if I had MUCH higher wireless device count, it would be worth considering but I don't have a ton of devices on this particular network.

That was my AI-RMM experience.  I did not find it making too many other adjustments (at least that I am/was aware of that you and other alluded to).  I would think reapplying the RF profile to that particular AP on your network might force it to reevaluate or reassess what settings to apply but could be mistaken.  It's possible that it's like iPSK if being used and turned off (i.e., the need to reboot the APs going back to another setting other than iPSK).

APs in my network are MR56, MR46s and MR36s running MR 31.1.7.

[rhbirkelund]

Do you by any chance have Flexible Radio Assignment enabled? Because that will disable the 2.4 GHz radio, if The Algorithm deems so. 🙂

[cmr]

I did, but it actually made the coverage worse and there wasn't any interference before...  As with most AI it just looks at some data and makes pre programmed decisions regardless of the actual requirement 😕

[rhbirkelund · Accepted solution]

My one and only experience with FRA was with the early days of 9800, when it was just released. It was promised to be an optimization, but it resulted in a large warehouse for a major retailer, having a huge outage, because FRA determined that the 2.4 GHz had enough coverage and so disabled half of all the 2.4 GHz radios. Regardless, that the customers' scanners and terminals were 2.4 GHz only, and thus began roaming VERY poorly, and kept loosing connection. 

After disabling FRA, and having to manually turn on radios, everything came back to normal.

Since then, I have always kept FRA disabled. I have not yet had a case, where it was actually proven to be a benefit.

[cmr]

The 2.4GHz radio did eventually come back on automatically along with a strange message that the hannel was changing from 11 to 1 even though it was 1 before...

 

[Paccers]

Does AI-RMM + FRA only play with the 2.4 GHz radios? That's what I got from the doc + message in Dashboard when enabling

[rhbirkelund]

FRA is a merchanism, that changes the XOR/Dual band radio from client serving on 2.4 to monitor or 5GHz mode. 

[Minse]

when FRA option is executed, it also looks at other interferer sources.  can you check if there is any Rogue APs using in the same channel?  

[cmr]

@Minse in my case definitely not.  The nearest other building is over 60m away and it's private land.  The APs are all even accurately placed on the map and in the same network.  If I stand next to the AP on channel 6 you can see that now the AP on channel 1 is back broadcasting, it isn't very strong.  All of the network names listed there are from the two APs of mine visible at that location:

 

 

[Minse]

Sound good and I started internal communication with engineering. we can discuss offline to further check out what we are seeing from the AP standpoint.

[cmr]

Thanks @Minse, happy to re-enable etc. and test whatever you'd like.

[TyShawn]

My only feedback with the announcement is it should make note of the required minimum license types. I believe the help guides does make note of this, but it never hurts to be overly communicative.

AI-RRM service requires Enterprise Advanced License or Advantage Tier Subscription

[JimFlorwick]

FRA will look at the calculated -67 dBm boundary between all 2.4 GHz interfaces.  It evaluates cell overlap to identify redundant interfaces ( not needed).  FRA uses neighbor RSSI to evaluate the cell size.  In normal carpeted office space with normal ceiling height (8-10 feet) this works pretty well at reducing the number of 2.4 GHz interfaces and eliminating the over saturation of 2.4GHz that normally exists.  In high ceiling or lower density deployments ( large public venue, warehousing - ceilings 25 feet or over) the neighbors will be heard at the ceiling between one another and not hear the return RSSI from the floor as well.  That can produce un desirable results. If the interface is an XOR (2.4 and 5) it can be converted to a serve 5 GHz radio. FRA can also disable or place in monitor mode any band-locked 2.4 GHz radio to balance the coverage.