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November 2008
802.11n represents the next evolutionary step in standards-based wireless networking and a sea change to the level of mobility on enterprise networks. Featuring numerous enhancements to the physical and MAC layers of 802.11, it is a complete overhaul of previous Wi-Fi technologies and will facilitate the mobilization of bandwidth intensive applications across all industries. Historically, careful planning and point optimizations were required to deploy high throughput applications over bandwidth constrained 802.11a/g networks. Now with the advent of 802.11n and its data rates upwards of 300Mbps, bandwidth is increased roughly 6X over todays 54Mbps WLANs offering breathing room for even the most demanding use cases. Cisco has made 802.11n Draft 2.0 capabilities available to enterprise-class customers with its Aironet 1140-series Access Point. Sporting 802.11n in both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequency bands, this Access Points permits mobility for high throughput applications and increases the reliability and predictability of WLANs. The Cisco Aironet 1140 series access point caters to indoor environments that demand outstanding wireless performance while blending in seamlessly with the aesthetics of the enterprise environment. In order to meet these set of requirements, the Aironet 1140 was designed with integrated antenna elements similar to its predecessor, the Cisco 1130AG. This access point includes six integrated Omni-directional antenna elements segmented into three discrete elements for each frequency band. Ideal for indoor environments, this access point has a low-profile design that blends into enterprise, health care or educational environments seamlessly. Featuring two integrated 802.11n Draft 2.0 radios, the AP can simultaneously serve 802.11b/g/n and 802.11a/n clients in the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, respectively. In addition to a Gigabit Ethernet uplink, the 1140 also supports full functionality while being powered by 802.3af Power Over Ethernet.
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(and resultant latency) as more voice handsets are introduced to a legacy cell. Such limitations erode with 11n. The media access layer of 802.11n offers more reliability-even to legacy 11a/b/g devices-thanks to the benefits from the physical layer enhancements, multiple antennas, and support for additional spatial streams that come from 11n's new radio technology. All this results in transmissions getting where they need to go the first time they're sent. Cisco tests show that, with both 11n and legacy 11a/b/g clients, 802.11 re-transmissions are reduced by half on Ciscos 802.11n Access Points compared to legacy transmissions on legacy access points.
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In this document, the term "legacy" refers to all devices that do not support the high throughput rates of 802.11n. This includes all clients and access points that support 802.11, 802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.11a PHY types. The ability to provide reliable connectivity consistently across the entire network is an integral part of the radio enhancements of 802.11n. This consistent reliability across time and motion, even in places not before reachable (due to nulls, signal muddling, and other negative effects of multipath), means that 11n finally brings predictability to the Wi-Fi world. In-house testing shows that the Aironet 1140 Series access point reduces variation in client latencies and retries by half.
Radio Enhancements
There are two important parts to the PHY (physical layer) augmentations of 802.11n that give the new standard the ability to deliver better raw data rates and, thus, higher application speeds. Both parts are conceptually straightforward. The most obvious enhancement is that the new 802.11n PHY supports much faster data rates, along with support for legacy 802.11a/b/g speeds. The 11n PHY actually supports a very wide array of different speeds, called modulation coding scheme (MCS) rates.
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Figure 1
MCS Rates
All things being equal, the 802.11n PHY is able to push more data than previous 802.11 iterations. But to reach even higher connection rates, clients must support a mix of the following two radio enhancements including channel bonding and MIMO. To further its PHY-speed cause, the 802.11n standard supports the traditional legacy 20 MHz channels and outlines extensions for 40 MHz operation, as well. By adding provisions to the standard to support channel bonding, unlike older, proprietary methods, 11n will make use of the spaces reserved between nonoverlapping channels to achieve increased spectral efficiency in the used bandwidth. In some environments, more than double the effective throughput of the two bonded channels alone may be realized. The 5-GHz band boasts more spectrum than the 2.4-GHz bandenough to make 40-MHz channel bonding possible.
MIMO
Multiple Input, Multiple Output, or MIMO, is at the heart of 802.11n and provides for a given transmission to operate at much higher data rates than the PHY would otherwise be capable. Spatial Division Multiplexing (SDM) is the ability of an 11n access point to use multiple radios and antennas to transmit different signals to the same recipient. The receiver puts the multiple discrete signals back together, thereby realizing a higher data rate than would otherwise be achieved by a single transmitting radio. In ideal conditions, utilizing Spatial Multiplexing permits 802.11n to nearly double throughput when multiple spatial streams are utilized. In addition to Spatial Division Multiplexing, MIMO also supports Maximal Ratio Combining (MRC) which allows multiple receive signals from discrete antennas to be combined. Traditional methods of receive diversity, as implemented in 802.11a/g devices, only switched to the antenna with the strongest signal thus disregarding information available on the other antenna. In sharp contrast, by using multiple antennas and advanced digital signal processing, 802.11n devices can decrypt both the original RF transmission and subsequent reflected copies to form a more reliable super signal comprised of information gained from all antennas. Put more clearly, a hypothetical person with three ears will hear more information than a person with two. The same goes for Access Points and their respective number of antennas. By having multiple RF viewpoints an 802.11n device enjoys increased reliability in comparison to a legacy device meaning packets will reach their destination on the first transmission reducing time wasted via costly retries.
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MIMO radios are referenced using the formula TxR:S. The 'T' stands for transmit antennas, the 'R' for receive antennas and the 'S' for the number of spatial streams. The number of spatial streams is the most important variable as it defines the maximum data rate of the radio. For radios supporting one spatial stream, the maximum data rate is 150Mbps, and a radio supporting two spatial streams tops out at a maximum data rate of 300Mbps (assuming a 40MHz-wide channel). The Cisco Aironet 1140-series utilizes two 2x3:2 MIMO radios, with one operating in the 2.4GHz band, and the other in the 5GHz band. This means each radio has two transmit antennas, three receive antennas and it supports a maximum of two spatial streams. Similarly, a 3x3:2 radio would utilize three transmit antennas, three receive antennas and support a maximum of two spatial streams. In terms of performance, radio configurations of 2x3:2 and 3x3:2 will be equivalent as their maximum speeds are capped at 300Mbps given the number of spatial steams are identical.
MAC Enhancements
Up the stack, 11n's MAC enhancements allow bandwidth-hungry applications to make more efficient use of available transmission time, further increasing effective throughput. The MAC layer enhancements to 802.11n are deceptively simple in concept, when compared to the substantial decrease in overhead they offer. Both aggregation and support for block acknowledgments help reduce the protocol overhead typical of legacy Wi-Fi networks, thereby boosting speeds. Aggregation allows data frames to be concatenated so that time wasted for medium contention and interframe spacing gaps may be greatly reduced.
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Aggregation will only occur with unicast traffic; broadcast and multicast traffic cannot be aggregated. Block acknowledgments (ACKs) further reduce protocol overhead by allowing a group, or block of frames, to be acknowledged with a single ACK frame. Legacy Wi-Fi networks have always required individual acknowledgment of unicast management and data frames.
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For more detailed technical information on 802.11n, please see the 802.11n: The Next Generation of Wireless Performance whitepaper at this URL: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/partner/solutions/collateral/ns340/ns394/ns348/ns767/white_paper_c11-4 27843_v1.html
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You may not always be able to disable legacy data rates, depending on the mix of clients you have in your environment. For example, you will likely not want to disable all 802.11b rates, or those legacy clients won't be able to connect at all, though it may be prudent to consider disabling some lower 802.11b rates (such as 1, 2, and 5.5 Mbps).
Leverage 5GHz
Although the 802.11n standard can operate in both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequency bands, specific characteristics of 5GHz make it especially advantageous for 802.11n operation. The value of 11n operations in 5 GHz is threefold. First, the install-base of legacy 11a clients is quite simply not nearly as widespread as 11b/g support is. This means that your 11n 5-GHz clients will contend less often with legacy clients and spend more time operating at high throughput rates. Next, the number of non-802.11 interferers that operate in the 5GHz band is a mere fraction of the multitude of cordless phones and Bluetooth devices that cause performance issues in the 2.4GHz band. Last, and the most important characteristic of 5 GHz, is the exponentially greater available bandwidth compared to 2.4 GHz. In the United States, there are 21 nonoverlapping channels you can use, which means you can deploy with density and capacity in mind and let RRM handle your channel (and power output) plan accordingly.
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Where possible, plan to support legacy devices you still have in 2.4 GHz, and look to leverage the 5GHz band for clients supporting 802.11n.
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Testing has shown that legacy devices can realize up to a 10 percent increase in throughput and draw on the benefits of the AP's multiple antennas and radios to drastically reduce retries. 802.11n allows legacy 11a/b/g clients to connect to an 11n infrastructure, albeit at rates allowed by the lesser standards. Backward compatibility is achieved using what's called "protection mechanisms" in order to allow higher throughput 11n devices to realize faster rates alongside their slower legacy cousins. Aggregate performance in such mixed-mode environments will be lower than with just 11n devices, but regardless of the client mix on an 802.11n AP, the overall throughput will exceed that of the slowest legacy standard. 11n protection mechanisms for legacy devices operate very similarly in the way 11g interoperates with 802.11b, though with differing throughput implications. The protection mechanism, which typically employs CTS-to-self frames (though some clients may use the whole RTS/CTS exchange) to alert others of an impending transmission, allows legacy devices to understand when 802.11n clients are using the medium, even though the slower clients can't decipher the 802.11n data rates. The throughput impact of coexistence will vary based on the number of clients, the mix of those clients (11a/b/g/n), specific traffic load characteristics, the varying distances of clients from the AP (which means slower links as they move farther away), and individual client rate shifting peculiarities.
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Since all current Voice over WLAN phones operate using the 802.11a/b/g standard, the total voice capacity of an 1140 Access Point is not increased over an 1130-series. There's no clear answer to the question of how legacy device coexistence will affect overall 11n throughput other than to say that performance will vary. If nothing else, we can be sure of a few things:
You will always realize some performance gain with 11n APs because all 11n devices will be able to transmit at 11n rates, even if legacy devices slow down aggregate performance when they operate in their legacy rates. The higher your percentage of 5GHz devices (even if they're legacy 802.11a clients) compared to 2.4-GHz devices, the better your overall performance will be. As time goes by, we'll see more 11n devices out there. This means that coexistence concerns will gradually diminish as existing legacy clients are swapped out through regular refresh cycles to 11n capable clients.
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Deploying 11n
interoperability testing and as a result, optimal performance can be expected when Intel 4965AGN or 5100/5300AGN client chipsets are utilized. Its also imperative that client driver version be kept current as performance will increase as subsequent hardware drivers are released. The maximum throughput performance will be realized when notebooks are connected to local AC power and any power saving mechanisms are disabled. Keep this in mind when benchmarking the performance of the 802.11n infrastructure as notebooks will often throttle CPU and motherboard power consumption to save battery life which can negatively impact throughput.
Deploying 11n
AP Placement and Site Surveying
The recommended density for deploying 802.11n-capable Access Points is nearly identical to the recommendations put forth for existing 802.11a/g infrastructures. For a Greenfield installation of an 802.11n infrastructure, a site survey will be required to assess the multipath propagation characteristics and determine optimal AP density. In the case that the deployment will be an upgrade of an existing wireless network, a 1 for 1 replacement strategy will provide better coverage than the existing infrastructure. This will also allow the existing wire drops to be reused for the infrastructure upgrade thus forgoing costly cable runs. When considering the outcome of deploying an 802.11n solution, a few key points can summarize the expectations.
1. 2. 3.
The maximum range of each Access Point will exhibit only limited improvements Legacy (802.11a/g) clients will exhibit enhanced coverage at existing rates 802.11n clients will exhibit enhanced coverage and performance leveraging high-throughput data rates.
Differences in Range
At each power level, the Cisco 1140-series provides a 10-15% increase in linear range over its 802.11a/b/g counterpart, the 1130-series. While this can be beneficial, it does not mean that Access Points should now be spaced farther apart and run at higher power levels. Just like 802.11a/g, 802.11n is a shared medium and designing a wireless network for maximum range will limit per client throughput. It is also important to keep in mind that these access points will provide higher data rates over the course of the entire coverage area.
Deploying 11n
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Deploying 11n
Figure 3
Cisco 1140
In the 2.4GHz band, the maximal range of the 1140-series AP is marginally better than the 1130-series, but the true advantage to deploying the 1140 can be found in the enhanced coverage. As depicted in the above images, an 1140-series Access Point supports a greater area of coverage utilizing high-bandwidth (depicted in green) data rates.
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Deploying 11n
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Deploying 11n
Figure 5
Cisco 1140
Similar to the 2.4GHz frequency band, the maximal range of an 1140 in the 5GHz frequency band is only marginally more than that of an 1130 but the coverage of high-bandwidth data rates is far superior.
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Deploying 11n
In order to quantify exactly how much improvement a legacy client can extract from a connection to an 802.11n capable Access Point, an Active Iperf site survey was performed using AirMagnets Surveyor 6.0 product and a Cisco CB-21AG client card. This form of survey used Iperf to push active traffic through the wireless link while the survey was being performed thus increasing the accuracy of data rate measurement.
Figure 7
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Deploying 11n
Figure 9
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Deploying 11n
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Deploying 11n
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Deploying 11n
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Deploying 11n
Figure 10
For simplicity, the above graphic depicts the average expected data rate vs. RSSI at the client. This is intended as a guideline to set expectations as to the performance of a 5GHz 802.11n infrastructure as range is increased. For the maximum data rate of 300Mbps, one can expect this cell size to include from right next to the Access Point and extend to signal strength of -55dBm to -60dBm. For an average data rate of 200Mbps, the maximum cell size will extend from -65dBm to -70dBm. These numbers should be utilized to lay the ground working in planning an 802.11n Greenfield deployment but are not an acceptable substitute for performing on-site surveys.
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The actual fringe of the cell, as measured in RSSI, is dependent on the capabilities of the client card in use. The above data was obtained using an Intel 4965AGN client card. Ensure that each different type of 11n adapter to be used in a deployment is tested during the survey process.
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Deploying 11n
Figure 11
In order to quantify the 5GHz 802.11n performance of the Cisco 1140 in a typical office environment, a site survey using AirMagnet Surveyor 6.0 was completed. In this test the Access Point was powered using PoE and configured with power level 1 (the highest setting). The result of the testing showed the 300Mbps cell extended to roughly 30ft from the Access Point. As for 200Mbps, the cell size extended to 66ft as depicted in the above image. Once a survey such as this is executed in the intended deployment location, one can use this data to deploy additional 802.11n Access Points. If the perspective Greenfield wireless installation will be intended to support a client base of both legacy and 802.11n clients, than a survey must be performed for each client type.
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As can be clearly seen from the above table, even if designing for peak throughput of 250Mbps per AP, no existing Cisco controller except the 21XX-series and WLCM-series are over-subscribed beyond current campus design guidelines of 20:1. For maximum performance in an 802.11n deployment, utilize the 440X or WiSM controllers.
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Although the 21XX-series and WLCM-series controllers fully support 802.11n functionality, the uplinks of the devices can become a potential bottleneck with locally switched WLANs. A remedy to this issue is to ensure the AP is connected to a Gigabit Ethernet switch and employ H-REAP to switch traffic locally at the AP. In a mixed client environment which is indicative of most deployments today, an 802.11n AP will experience maximum throughputs of about 200Mbps, which places high-end controller oversubscription values on-par or better than the recommendation of 8:1.
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Increasing system capacity by adding controllers in this manner is called "horizontal scaling." Horizontal scalability allows you to scale the WLAN infrastructure to meet additional load by augmenting the aggregate capacity and spreading the load evenly across each individual controller.
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Under the Wireless tab on the controller GUI, click on the 802.11a/n or 802.11b/g/n network setting. Click High Throughput (802.11n) to open the configuration page. Ensure that 11n Mode is enabled. By default, all of the MCS (or 802.11n data rates) are enabled.
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Figure 12
Figure 13
In regards to quality of service, the WLAN must be configured to allow WMM in order for 802.11n rates to be operational. To configure this on the wireless LAN controller, ensure that the WMM Policy under the WLAN profile configuration is set to either Allowed or Required.
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Figure 14
Figure 15
Aggregated MAC Protocol Data Unit (A-MPDU) Aggregated MAC Service Data Unit (A-MSDU).
A-MPDU is performed in the software whereas A-MSDU is performed in the hardware. You can specify the aggregation method for various types of traffic from the access point to the clients. Table 1 defines the priority levels (0-7) assigned per traffic type.
Table 1 Traffic Type Priority Levels
User Priority 0 1
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Table 1
User Priority 2 3 4 5 6 7
Traffic Type Spare Excellent effort Controlled load Video, less than 100-ms latency and jitter Voice, less than 10-ms latency and jitter Network control
You can configure each priority level independently, or you can use the all parameter to configure all of the priority levels at once. When you use the enable command, the traffic associated with that priority level uses A-MPDU transmission. When you use the disable command, the traffic associated with that priority level uses A-MSDU transmission. Configure the priority levels to match the aggregation method used by the clients. By default, only priority level 0 is enabled.
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As of this writing, the list of clients which do not currently support this band include Ciscos CB-21AG, Intels 4965AGN, Intels 3945ABG, Intels 2915ABG and Apple MacBook Pros with an Atheros card. Clients which do support this band include Apples iMac (with Broadcom 43xx-series wireless chipsets) and Intels 5100/5300AGN adapters. Ensure that the latest drivers are installed to leverage these channels. Please check with the vendor to ensure support. In order to ensure that RRM does not utilize any of the UNII-2 Extended channels for automatic channel selection, navigate to 802.11a -> RRM -> DCA -> DCA Channel List and uncheck channels 100 through 140.
Figure 16 DCA Channel List
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Starting with Wireless LAN Controller version 5.2, the default configuration of RRMs dynamic channel assignment algorithm will exclude these UNII-2 Extended channels from the list of automatically selected channels. This frequency sub-band can be re-enabled by means of the following configuration parameter found in the 802.11a -> RRM -> DCA -> DCA Channel List configuration on the controller. However, before re-enabling this frequency sub-band, ensure that the client base supports UNII-2 Extended channels.
Figure 17 UNII-2 Extended Channels
40MHz Operation
The maximum throughput of 802.11n can only be realized when 40MHz channels are utilized. In this mode, two traditional and contiguous 20MHz channels are bonded together to create a double-wide channel which essentially doubles performance. As a result of the expansive amount of spectrum in the 5GHz frequency band, 40MHz channels are recommended for operation in this band. There are two mechanisms by which this 40MHz operation is configured on the controller, either by using RRM to automatically assign channels, or statically configuring Access Point radios into a specific 40Mhz channel.
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When selecting a statically assigned channel in 40MHz, the radio will automatically select the appropriate extension (or adjacent channel) to bond with the channel selected. In the above example, channel 36 was selected and channel 40 was automatically utilized as the extension channel. In another example, if channel 44 were selected, channel 48 would be selected as the extension channel. This applies to all channels across the 5GHz band configured for 40MHz operation and follows the convention that only adjacent channels can be bonded.
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