Configuring Radio

Use this screen to configure radio settings for all access points in the network.

Double-click one of the networks on Org-Trees > Configure > Radio Settings.

The settings and options in the Radio Setting page apply to all access points in a network, and you can configure the following settings:

Channel

This option allows users to customize the channels. On the Auto setting, EnGenius access points automatically adjust the channels of their radios to avoid RF interference.

Exclude DFS

Some use cases may require that Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS) channels be excluded from the Auto Channel algorithm. DFS channels can be allowed or excluded on the radio settings page.

Since DFS channels can only be used until radar communication is heard, disabling DFS may be useful if the wireless network is in close proximity to a harbor, airport, or weather radar station. Administrators may also want to disable DFS if most local wireless clients do not support DFS channels.

Please notice that Exclude DFS only affected when Channel is Auto on 5G.

Preferred Scanning Channels (PSC)

With 1200 MHz of spectrum and 59 new 20 MHz channels, a station with a dwell time of 100 ms per channel would require almost 6 seconds to complete a passive scan of the entire band. The standard implements a new efficient process for clients to discover nearby access points (APs). In Wi-Fi 6E, a process called fast passive scanning is being used to focus on a reduced set of channels called preferred scanning channels (PSC). PSCs are a set of 15 20-MHz channels that are spaced every 80 MHz. The APs will set their primary channel to coincide with the PSC so that it can be easily discovered by a client, and clients will use passive scanning in order to just scan PSCs to look for an AP.

Channel HT Mode

The use of 40 MHz channels on the 2.4 GHz band does not provide for multiple independent channels in multi-AP deployments for 2.4GHz. The recommended setting is 20MHz. To maximize throughput, use 40 MHz for 802.11n and 80 MHz for 802.11ac for 5GHz. Note that higher density deployments should use 20 MHz or 40 MHz channels on 5 GHz.

Tx Power

Using this option, users can set a custom range for Tx power.

The higher the transmission power (Tx power) of the access point, the bigger the coverage of the WiFi signal, so usually maximum power is set for an access point to connect to another access point for WDS or mesh purposes.

However, it might not be the best practice if the access point serves the purpose of being a client access point because usually client devices (notebooks, mobile phones, etc.) might not have the same transmission power to be able to communicate back.

The current device's transmission power can be referenced here, where most notebooks and mobile phone transmission power range from 15dBm - 25dBm. Some WiFi devices, like Amazon Echo, are in the smaller range of 10-11dBm.

If your enterprise environment is comprised mainly of notebooks and mobile phones, then it is better to turn down your access point transmission power to 15-17dBm on 5G, and 10-12dBm for 2.4G (so the coverage area of 5G and 2.4G is about the same). If you keep the same transmission power of 5G and 2.4G, it also means the signal strength of 2.4G is about 6 dB higher than 5G at the same location. Then the client device might roam from 5G to 2.4G because it detects better signal strength. It is highly recommended to leverage the EnGenius ezWiFiPlanner tool to simulate coverage with different transmission power settings.

Minimum Bit Rate

EnGenius access points can adjust the minimum bit rate for each radio (2.4G and 5G separately). When the minimum bitrate is set, an access point will send out beacons based on the minimum bit rate.

For example, if the bit rate is set to 6Mbps, then those clients with slower than 6Mbps bit rate will not be able to connect to the WiFi and will not slow down other clients' performance. 802.11b max bit rate is 11Mbps, so if 12Mbps is set per radio, then 802.11b clients will not be able to connect to the network.

The other benefit is to help better roaming, because when a client roams to a weaker RSSI signal and causes slower performance, then the access point will be kicked out, and the client will search the available SSIDs again to connect to a stronger signal SSID.

If the value is set too high, then it also means a greater density of access points are required to cover the area with the minimum bit rate. This may potentially cause more channel conflict because the transmission power of the access point remains the same, so the RF coverage area is the same and more RF areas overlap.

Client Limit

This is a hardware limitation, commonly applied to most access points in the market. There can be 254 clients connected to an access point at a maximum (127 clients to each 2.4G and 5G band). To serve more than 127 2.4/5G clients in a space, a higher density of access points must be deployed.

Discard 802.11 a/b/g

This option allows users to discard 802.11 a/b/g devices to use network to prevent the impact of performance on other 802.11ac/ax clients.

Disable 11ax

Some legacy wireless clients are not compatible with 11ax. This option allows legacy equipment to connect with your network as usual, we suggest you disable 11ax in 2.4G of your Radio settings. In this way, you can have equipment working in 5G with better performance and get legacy devices served well in 2.4G.

Disable 11be

Some legacy wireless clients are not compatible with 11be. This option allows legacy equipment to connect with your network as usual.

Must know

Support AP Firmware: v1.x.70 or above.

DCS (Dynamic Channel Selection)

Dynamic Channel Selection allows a Wireless Access Point to monitor traffic and noise levels on the channel which is current operating and also keeps watching utilization of other channels with background scanning.

When DCS is enabled and traffic or noise levels of current channel exceed predefined threshold (50%) for a period (15 mins), the AP ceases operating on the current channel and hops to an alternative channel with best utilization in statistics. If you want to schedule the DCS, you could expand the advanced settings and select 2 timeslots in a day or do the DCS every time interval.

When to use it

DCS is useful for the complex and dynamic wireless environment where numerous APs and travel routers broadcast and transmit packets in the same area. It usually comes with high radio interference and the situation changes from time to time. In this case, DCS could be helpful to react for unexpected interference with a short-term mechanism and jump to a cleaner channel to operate.

• When DCS is enabled, the client will be disconnected if the system decides to hop to a new channel. That may affect some real-time applications.

• DCS only takes effect when the channel of Radio is set in "auto".

• This feature requires AP firmware version to be V1.X.35 or above.

Client Balancing

After you enable Client Balancing, AP will use information about the state of the network and wireless protocol 802.11V to steer the clients to the best available access point during association. Require firmware v 1.x.20 or above, and only support on ECW220v2/ECW220v3.

Mesh

This option will allow users to enable meshing on the 2.4GHz, 5GHz or 6GHz bands. Auto Pairing will assist in wirelessly connecting (meshing) to an access point (AP) that is not connected to a LAN connection.

Note

At least one AP must be wired and connected to the LAN and to EnGenius Cloud, while the power LED should be showing a steady orange. Neighboring APs that will be meshed need to be within 10 meters of one another.

Once you enable mesh and click Apply, an Auto Pairing button will appear. The Auto Pairing button will trigger access points that are connected to the internet to scan and mesh with neighboring access points that are not connected to the internet.

Note

Access points that are not wired to the LAN and are not connected to the Internet (i.e., cannot connect to cloud) will open a management SSID to request help from access points that are connected to a LAN or the internet (i.e., can connect to cloud).

How to enable mesh node

1. Locate an AP that is wired and connected to a LAN (i.e., connected to Cloud, Power LED is steady orange).

2. Place the new unwired AP, which is already registered to an organization (Org) and assigned to a network, within 10 meters of the LAN-connected AP.

Note: Distances will vary based off transmission power and environmental interference.

3. Power on the new unwired AP and the “mesh” LED will begin flashing.

4. Click the Auto Pairing button under Radio Settings in cloud to begin the meshing process. The connected AP will attempt to find and mesh with the new unwired AP.

a. There must be a cloud-connected AP nearby for the new AP to wirelessly connect.

b. All APs must be on the same “network” so that the mesh configuration can be pushed to all

APs in the mesh group.

c. It will take approximately 4-10 minutes for an AP to complete the meshing process due to

firmware upgrade and reboot.

5. Once complete and successful, the mesh LED will be on, and the power LED will be blue on all

mesh-connected APs.