Aironet 1200's Auto-Channel Feature: When should it be used?

In our building we have around 25 1200 series Aironets, with a bit of overlap in some areas. Up until this point, we have had them deployed in alternating 1/6/11 channels, but we are wondering if we would get better performance if we used the auto-channel select feature.

In looking around, I have seen comments that this feature should not be used as the WAP does a channel scan only on the initial radio startup, but I have not found this in any Cisco docs.

Anybody have anymore information, or real-world experience with this feature?

Thanks!

-Josh

Solution 1:

In my experience with that feature you said is true (I have a few hundred HP Procurve 420's deployed across 5 buildings), the auto detect is only done on initialization/boot. It's a good feature for when you need to roll a lot of them out very fast, but if you can handle making sure they're toggled, then there really isn't much to be gained. The intermediate channels tend to give me trouble with various devices that I don't tend to experience on 1/6/11. This is all incidental, but that would be my two cents.

-Nathan

Solution 2:

The Cisco and ProCurve WAPs I've seen only scan on startup. As Nathaniel said, it's great for rapid deployment (so they aren't all on the default channel). But it's best to intelligently configure them so that adjacent units are on different channels.

Also, only ever use 1/6/11. 802.11b/g use a signal that's 5 channels wide. So using any other channel will result in overlap. 802.n uses every channel, and should be avoided in campus deployments (as I understand it, though this could change as the technology matures).