Are the MR53E's just not that good?

[jonyh]

Hi all, 

We have a few MR53E's and the performance on these are absolutely terrible. I have worked with Meraki at some length but not really getting anywhere with it. Capping out 5ghz at 289mbps with stub antennas. Any ideas or is this normal?

[cmr]

Stub antennas are usually only a fraction of a wavelength, have you tried with the normal 6" ones that should be better?

[jonyh]

Sorry I meant the 6" dipole adjustable not the stubs my mistake.

[cmr]

Looking at one of the antenna's datasheet, the lead comment is as below:

Dipole (MA-ANT-3-A5/6)
The Dipole antenna is ideal for low ceiling installations where wall penetration or extended reach are important. Some example uses are low-density deployments like schools and hotels to provide basic low-performance connectivity. These types of best effort deployments usually have APs installed in the hallway to cover adjacent rooms.

[cmr]

Okay, they should be much better, sorry posts crossed over...

[ww · Accepted solution]

20mhz

[cmr]

Which antennas are they, the bendy dipole ones on the datasheet are 3" including the bend so I don't think they'll be much better than the stubs, I couldn't see a decent 6" one.  That could well be the problem...

[jonyh]

That could potentially be it. Switching to a wide patch could resolve this I'd imagine. Or just upgrading to the 55's.

[jdsilva]

@ww is 100% correct here. The data rate you're hitting is the max for a 20MHz channel, which is pretty impressive actually. 

[jonyh]

I've tried overriding this and adjusting the RF profiles but the 53e's default back to that.

[jonyh]

Good call there. I switched it manually in the RF profiles to 80 obviously losing coverage area but hit that correct speed.

[NolanHerring]

This as good as it gets really when your using 20MHz, and Macbooks are 3 stream capable too, so yeah, its awesome not bad. MCS9 is 'better' but not by much.

http://mcsindex.com/

Scroll down until you see 234 in the 20MHz column, light blue color for 802.11ac rates

[PhilipDAth]

Try using 40Mhz wide channels if the environment is not to dense.