I know this topic is a bit controversial when it comes to antenna diversity specialists but I do want an outside opinion.
So I have a customer with an existing wireless deployment in a freezer warehouse environment. There are some phone issues where calls can drop at the end of some aisles where I found the phone to try to roam from one AP to another while both only have about -85 dBm signal strength which is to be expected.
The environment has one tricky issue and that is that the racks are mobile. So each rack is 2.5 meters wide and in each grouping of racks there is always one space of 4 meters. So yes I have checked and there always is a 1.5 meter overlap where I could place an AP to cover 2 potential rows. In the current setup that consists of Zyxel access points they have put 3x3 AP's where one directional antenna is about 3 meters to the left of the AP and another is to the right. They have not connected the 3rd antenna slot because Zyxel told them their AP's detect that and go into 2x2 mode. Since not all antennas are lined up to every possible open row configuration the above mentioned problem happens predominantly when an antenna is not lined up to the open row.
So in a potential new deployment I would like to of course take into account all the rows.
However since Cisco and Cisco Meraki is just a teensie weensie bit more expensive than a Zyxel solution I am a bit worried about mainly the cost but also the potentia of having to double the AP count.
I was wondering since the MR86 can be paired with single element or dual element antennas without having issues. In essence would it be possible to have one antenna connected via a 3 meter low loss cable to the left side of the AP covering the first gap (2 row combinations) and having the other antenna do the same to the right covering the second gap. I know that antenna diversity will be less than stellar. It's not that there won't be any coverage from the second antenna that is blocked by the rows but that will be poor while the visible antenna will have great coverage towards the entire row.
The second slight worry I have if that if this is entirely out of the question I will have to double the amount of AP's and thus double the amount of airtime utilization since I only have the option to place the AP's at the open wall in front of the rows and not above the rows themselves.
I will apply for a demo to test this scenario out but I'm curious about my fellow wireless guys with more experience what you would say about this.
Btw the clients are a mixture of 1x1 wifi phones, and 2x2 Zebra barcode scanning devices.
