Outdoor Clients Impacting Wi-Fi Performance

The Outdoor Clients are Impacting Wi-Fi Performance insight is used to understand which outdoor clients are affecting the performance of the indoor AP. This insight can be accessed only at the Global context, and is triggered when the Probe SNR Signal-to-Noise Ratio. SNR is used for comparing the level of a desired signal with the level of background noise. threshold is not set optimally. This insight is categorized under wireless quality as low SNR clients (outdoor) experience poor Wi-Fi Wi-Fi is a technology that allows electronic devices to connect to a WLAN network, mainly using the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz radio bands. Wi-Fi can apply to products that use any 802.11 standard. connectivity, which in turn affects other indoor clients. It provides information about the APs (SSID Service Set Identifier. SSID is a name given to a WLAN and is used by the client to access a WLAN network./Group) impacted by serving the outdoor clients and the recommended SNR value (dBm Decibel-Milliwatts. dBm is a logarithmic measurement (integer) that is typically used in place of mW to represent receive-power level. AMP normalizes all signals to dBm, so that it is easy to evaluate performance between various vendors.) to each impacted SSID and the split up value of SNR vs Minutes serving indoor and outdoor clients in the network.

The recommended SNR threshold values for the Local Probe Request Threshold and Min RSSI Received Signal Strength Indicator. RSSI is a mechanism by which RF energy is measured by the circuitry on a wireless NIC (0-255). The RSSI is not standard across vendors. Each vendor determines its own RSSI scale/values. for Auth Request can be applied automatically (AI Artificial intelligence (AI) is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems. AI reduces trouble tickets by identifying the network entity that is facing problems through event correlation and root cause analysis.-driven) or update manually to impacted APs whenever this insight is triggered. At the AP configuration page, Advanced Settings, you must set the Local Probe Request Threshold and Min RSSI for Auth Request to either of the following:

  • Automatic—The AP is switched to AI-driven mode. In this approach the values recommended by the insight is applied automatically whenever the insight is triggered.
  • Manual—The AP is switched to manual mode. In this approach, the values recommended by the insight should be applied manually by the user. In the Recommendation column, click Update to apply the recommended changes automatically to specific SSIDs or AP groups.

    The Update button is available only for users with read-write and admin role permissions.

If there is no SNR recommendation value from this insight, the AP uses the previously configured recommended default value.

Important Points to Note

  • The outdoor clients are located far from the AP having low SNR value, whereas the indoor clients are located near the AP having high SNR value.
  • The AP configuration page has the following settings that help to ignore Probe Requests and authentication requests from outdoor clients:
    • Local Probe Request Threshold
    • Min RSSI for Auth Request

    If the user does not configure an optimum threshold, this insight analyzes the user network and provides the recommended configuration for the same.

  • Ensure that the SNR threshold value is set between 8 dBm and 16 dBm. If the value is set below 8 dBm, the system sets it back to 8 dBm. If the value is set above 16 dBm, the system sets it back to 16 dBm. If the value is set between +3 and -3, no specific recommendation is provided as there might be a few clients in the network.

This insight displays the following information:

Insight Summary

The insight summary provides the following details:

  • SSID—The list of SSIDs impacted by outdoor clients.
  • Recommendation—Change the Probe SNR/RSSI threshold and the Auth SNR/RSSI threshold to the recommended value to improve the performance of the indoor Wi-Fi clients. Click the Update button to apply the recommended changes automatically to SSIDs or AP groups. Clicking the Update button changes the AP configuration parameters from manual driven to AI driven (automatic). For more information on AP configuration parameters, see Configuring Wireless Network Profiles on IAPs.
    • AP configuration cannot be changed to manual driven after you switch to the AI driven mode from the AI Insight page. To go back to manual driven mode, you must change it from the device configuration page.
    • SSIDs managed by Template Groups cannot be updated automatically from the AI Insight page. You must apply the AI-driven settings manually from the device configuration page.
    • The Update button is available only for users with read-write and admin role permissions.

    In AI-driven mode, when the recommendation is applied automatically on the AP, a report is scheduled to be generated a week later. For more information on reports, see Report Categories.

Time Series Graph

The time series graph displays the current and the recommended SNR threshold (dBm) for impacted SSID type in the network. To rectify the issue, the Probe SNR threshold must be set to the recommended value. This frees up airtime and AP resources for indoor users. The graph also shows the SNR vs Minutes used by indoor and outdoor clients. It shows how much each outdoor client impacted the network performance.

The following figure displays the SNR threshold graph based on the SSID selected from the drop-down list and contains the recommended SNR threshold value:

Figure 1  Sample Probe SNR Threshold Graph

The probe SNR threshold graph provides the following details:

  • Outdoor—The number of outdoor minutes at that SNR.
  • Indoor—The number of indoor minutes at that SNR.

Cards

The cards vary based on the context that you access the insight from. Click one of the cards to view further details:

Table 1: Cards Context

Cards

Context

Access Point

Global

Outdoor Clients

Global

Outdoor Minutes

Global

Access Point

Displays the details of APs that are impacted by outdoor clients. Click the arrow to view the pictorial graph of the Most Impacted access points. Select an SSID from the Access Point drop-down list to view the most impacted APs. Click the number displayed on the Access Point card, to view a detailed description of the impacted APs:

  • AP Name—Name of the impacted AP and link to the specific insight at the AP context.
  • SSID—The impacted SSID name.
  • Low SNR Minutes—The duration for which the connected clients have low SNR value.
  • Recommended Threshold—The recommended value of the Probe SNR/RSSI Threshold and Auth SNR/RSSI Threshold.
  • Site—Name of the site where the AP resides.

Outdoor Clients

Lists the name, MAC Media Access Control. A MAC address is a unique identifier assigned to network interfaces for communications on a network. address, duration, SSID, client OS, and site of clients below the proposed SNR threshold. Click the arrow to view the pictorial graph of the Most Impacted clients. Select an SSID from the Outdoor Clients drop-down list to view the most impacted clients. Click the number displayed on the Client card, to view a detailed description of the impacted clients:

  • Client Name—Host name of the impacted client and link to the specific insight at the client context.
  • Client MAC—MAC address of the impacted client and link to the specific insight at the client context.
  • Duration (mins)—Number of minutes the client was outside below the recommended Probe/Auth SNR threshold.
  • SSID—The SSID impacted by outdoor clients.
  • Client OS—OS type of the device.
  • Site—Name of the site where the client resides.

Outdoor Minutes

Displays the percentage of avoided outdoor clients minutes and affected indoor client minutes in a chart. Click the arrow to view a pictorial graph of the Most Impacted outdoor minutes. Click the number displayed on the Outdoor Minutes card, to view a detailed description of the impacted SSIDs:

  • SSID—The impacted SSID name
  • Total Traffic (%)—The percentage of total traffic impacted
  • Current Authentication Threshold (min-max)—The minimum and maximum value of the current SNR/RSSI authentication threshold.
  • Recommended Auth Threshold—The recommended value of the SNR/RSSI authentication threshold.
  • Current Probe Threshold (min-max)—The minimum and maximum value of the current probe SNR/RSSI threshold.
  • Recommended Probe Threshold—The recommended value of the probe SNR/RSSI threshold.
  • Outdoor Minutes Rejected if recommendation is applied to all APs—The outdoor minutes that are rejected if recommendation is applied to all APs.
  • Indoor Minutes sacrificed if recommendation is applied to all APs—The indoor minutes that are sacrificed if recommendation is applied to all APs.
  • Outdoor Minutes Rejected if recommendation is applied to recommended subset of APs—The outdoor minutes that are rejected if recommendation is applied to the recommended subset of APs.
  • Indoor Minutes sacrificed if recommendation is applied to recommended subset of APs—The indoor minutes that are sacrificed if recommendation is applied to recommended subset of APs.