I am not sure if this a question or just me venting. Have a customer who in part of their warehouse has a four level pick module. Each level is 9 feet tall with the usual 4" to 6" floor/ceiling between them. The whole thing is a tower of multi-path and dirty RF. It is hard enough to design proper Wi-Fi for these types of areas. Not impossible, but hard. So here comes the monkey wrenches: 1. All their RF Scanner are 2.4GHz only. 2: The four levels are shared with a different tenant. Levels 1 & 2 are theirs, but 3 & 4 are their tenants. 3. Tenant's services (SSID, MXs, etc.) will be different and thus different APs - thankfully of my design and choosing.
With only 3 Channels, how am I supposed to design a four level structure in 3 dimensions that is essential a giant 100'x200' cage full of metal - without causing myself so much self-inflicted interference between them and the Tenant that the whole doesn't slows to crawl, or worse!
I don't think it is possible. Channel Overlap is already going to be a huge concern, without the issue of a second WLAN sitting over their heads. Ugh.
Consider the cost of upgrading the RF scanners as part of the WiFi upgrade, and not something that is seperate.
Oh I agree completely with that, but since they are a customer I am not sure how that will look in my report! Ha-ha.
Have you looked into the Meraki Narrow Patch Antennas? That may be a solution, albeit and expensive one.
The F-Series are nice to some degree and I do like them. The issue is any AP I place on level 4 facing down, will penetrate to the bottom. If I place it on the wall, it will still hit level 2, even the Narrow Patch Antenna. Worse is the each level is only 9 feet. If I place it vertically on the wall, the pickers themselves become RF obstacles. To make matters worse, if I lower the TxPower to contain as much as I can, it won't cover enough rack space. If it was one WLAN for the area, I would just throw in some 42/53 internals in a staggered pattern going up and down.
I think my solution is design to 5GHz, so they see what it SHOULD look like and then one for 2.4GHz that shows them my "best effort". They can either upgrade their RF Scanners to 5GHz, segregate their Tenant via SSID/VLANs and such, or accept 2.4GHz will be sub-standard in that area.
My head hurts. 🙂
It looks something like this, except the stairs are inside. It might as well be four levels of chicken wire running every which way. Ha-ha.
If you really really have to use 2.4Ghz, this might be a good use case for RX-SOP.
https://documentation.meraki.com/MR/Radio_Settings/Receive_Start_of_Packet_(RX-SOP)
https://documentation.meraki.com/MR/Radio_Settings/RF_Profiles#RX-SOP
Sure thing. I will either update this post or update my resume following this project. 🙂
I have done a lot of warehouse work, including pick modules, but almost always with either Cisco and/or third-party antennas. This is my first 100% Meraki warehouse/pick-module and their antenna selection is somewhat lacking for this environment. For example, their downtilt omnis and patches only work on indoor rated APs. The only Meraki four port antenna for their Industrial rated APs is the Cisco Stadium antenna, which is only for the MR84. This is fine for the N.E. and air conditioned warehouses, but I would seriously hesitate to use MR53s at 30' in any steel building in Arizona or NM. I was on a call with Meraki and Cisco pretty much begging them to certify or copy the Cisco 2566p4w antenna and add N-type connectors to it. That was would be a big win for Meraki and the Warehouse market. Right now the only true option for the MR74/84 is a third-party one, which is out of bounds for Meraki Support.
Anyways, I am kind of holding my breath to see how those massive F-Series actually perform in the pick modules.
+1 for Acceltex. They have some real nice solutions, including their AP skins. Maybe one day Meraki Support won't balk at third-party antennas.