Meraki Guest WIFI - Drop outs.

[Joel2024]

Hello All. 

I will try and be straight to the point.

Problem: People using Guest WIFI keep getting poor connection or drop outs..

Guests will come to our building and connect to our Guest WIFI - Drop outs or poor connection happen, noticeable while in MS Teams video calls. Our Corporate WIFI works great all the time

We have 53 Meraki WAP's (CW9162I) across our sites - The GUEST SSID per site don't have any shaping limits set on them. Running in External DHCP Server assigned mode (NAT mode not great for roaming). The DHCP location is a specific VLAN that's isolated.

Our vendor and Cisco thought it might be better to use a Meraki MX68 Router/Security Appliance with our Meraki WAP's for a better connection outcome.

We only have the MR Enterprise version installed.. 

[cmr]

• How many guests devices might be connected when the issues occur?
• What bandwidth is the connection into the MX68?
• Is the connection physically or logically separate from the corporate connection?

[Joel2024]

Guest connections could be anywhere from 3 to 30.. 

We have a dual 1Gb fibre links for the internet for each site. 

The CORP and Guest WIFI are only separated via their SSID profile and network VLAN's. The physical WAPS broadcast both the SSIDs and connect to the same Cisco Switches..

I'm going to review tomorrow if it's any DHCP release issues as we just our local DHCP servers for both CORP and Guest - but not sure if i'm barking up the wrong tree for this.. 

[cmr]

@Joel2024, are the guest and corp SSIDs both using the MX68, or just the guests?  Does that MX68 have both 1Gb connections to itself?

[Joel2024]

There is not MX68 installed at all. Cisco and the Vendor mentioned a MX68 might be a good option..

current setup is User > Cisco CW9162I WAP > CORP or GUEST SSID > Cisco Cat Switch > Local DHCP Server> Checkpoint Firewalls > Internet.. 

[GreenMan]

As much as I'd love everyone to use MX - and 'many' would gain benefits from so doing - there's definitely no specific requirement from Meraki to run other Meraki products behind an MX.

My suggestion here would be that, if you're not doing it already, raise a case with Meraki Support and work through the detail with them.   I'f further suggest that calling in on the telephone, will be far better than raising a case via the Dashboard = particularly if you can point the engineer at a specific device that is having the problem, in a way they can ID that device in the Dashboard and tie it down specifically in time.

[Joel2024]

Thanks GreenMan I'm raising a case and also doing some more deeper testing..

Users can be connected to GUEST WIFI and working ok - then drop notice complete drops or speed will drop to almost zero.. 

I'm trying to understand if it's just a load issue or some interaction between our onsite Checkpoint firewalls or onsite DHCP.. 

If we got a MX device - I know you can go physical or virtual.. I like the idea of virtual azure MX device.. I believe it would save the need for our GUEST to route back into our network for DHCP? 

[Joel2024]

Afternoon All. Looking at some advice to break down fault.

Today I was in a video chat with my director who was on the Guest WIFI in the office - His call quality got too bad it dropped him, and he switched over to a hot spot connection from his phone before he could jump back on the video chat.

• I have been reviewing the logs on the Meraki portal 
• Trying with different laptops
• reviewed the QOS on the Cisco Access switches
• Tried Meraki NAT - while this does work ok - Terrible for roaming.