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I'm sure one of you have done this before. So our company has decided to have a separate physical network for Guest WiFi. This means putting up a new Cisco Wireless Controller and Access Points. We will also put it on the edge of our LAN, making sure that it's touching only the router of our 2nd ISP.

My question will be the (possible?) interference these additional Guest APs will bring. Currently we have 4 APs we are using for our Corporate users. Our office has two floors with about 100+ users. I'm thinking of putting up 2-3 Guest APs. Where do you suggest to put them? Should I place it as far as possible from the Corporate APs? Or can they be close, assuming that it's 5 GHz and they are using different channels. Any best practice or suggestions?

Thanks as always.

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  • Avoid interference on same channel , controller should handle co-channel interference
    – Gadeliow
    Sep 7, 2015 at 8:48
  • Did any answer help you? if so, you should accept the answer so that the question doesn't keep popping up forever, looking for an answer. Alternatively, you could provide and accept your own answer.
    – Ron Maupin ♦
    Aug 12, 2017 at 5:45

3 Answers 3

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There you can configure your Access points at different channels, so they wouldn't overlapse and interfere with each other. Also, configure the power of your AP's. There are some apps for android to monitor wifi frequency usage, that would help you to plan the infrastucture. The pictures below are the example of wifi channel planning and 2.4 GHz wifi channel overlay.

enter image description hereenter image description here

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  • @ IIshat - is it safe to assume that we can have two APs nearby as long as the channel(s) are not the overlapping?
    – Marc_A
    Sep 8, 2015 at 5:55
  • @Marc_A yes, it is completely safe. But if you will use the same SSID, endpoints will connect to the AP with the stronger signal. This can cause overload of the one AP and almost no load on another. In this case you can lower the power of AP's to decrease the wifi coverage radius.
    – Ilshat Karazbaev
    Sep 8, 2015 at 8:18
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make use the next design approach 1. Avoid interference on same channel, this should be handled by your controller as shown in the next figure for 2.4 range of frequency

2.4 range and for 5 G range of frequency

5G range and as you can figure out controller manage channels and AP power , so you will have no problem in setup access point any where with no fear of interference

for interference with other access point or any other 802.11 radio device , cisco provide great feature called cleanair ,which is acting as Proactive Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) Protection enter image description here

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  • as you can figure out controller manage channels and AP power , so you will have no problem in setup access point any where with no fear of interference @Gadeliow - since I'm using two separate WLCs (one for Guest, another for Corp), how will the other know the power of the group of APs?
    – Marc_A
    Sep 8, 2015 at 5:43
  • i just update my answer please check and let me updated
    – Gadeliow
    Sep 8, 2015 at 7:47
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Using most modern APs and WLCs you can make use of the 2.4 and 5 ghz spectrums G,N and AC band standards...there is no need to create two separate environments. We have 4 or 5 guest wifi SSIDs in our environment although use AP numbers in the thousands and 6 WLC controllers. ALso through MIMO its possible to use multiple vlans and environments without dividing the physical equipment, it is divided on the logical level.

The APs and WLC software know when they have different SSIDs that interference needs to be avoided and will adjust accordingly. just create a different group for your guest APs and their SSID and implement more restrictive policies on that group to avoid problems. Think access rights QOS etc....

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