WLAN Settings

Learn the WLAN settings and required values.

Table 1. Required WLAN Settings

Setting

Required Value

Voice Grade Site Survey

Required

B3000 Transmit Power (2.4GHz)

Max 15dBm (30mW) - Min 11dBm (12.5mW)

B3000n Transmit Power (2.4GHz)

Max 17dBm (50mW) - Min 12dBm (16mW)

B3000n Transmit Power (5 GHz)

Max 16dBm (40mW) - Min 13dBm (20mW)

Minimum Power Coverage

-65dBm

Minimum SNR

25

Beacon Interval

100

DTIM

1

Peer to peer blocking

Disabled

Public Secure Packet Forwarding

Disabled

ARP Cache

Enabled except for Autonomous APs

Priority Queue

Highest - Voice

Encryption If N Rates Are Used

AES

Radio Channel Utilization

Consistent less than 30%

Channel Width

2.4 GHz: 20MHz

5 GHz: 20MHz or 40MHz

Guard Interval

2.4 GHz: Long

5 GHz: Long

Table 2. Recommended WLAN Settings

Setting

Recommended Value

Code Version

Use most recent version of Controller and AP code

Basic Data Rates

Needs to be determined for each site

Supported Data Rates

All Enabled

Channel Plan

2.4 GHz: 1, 6, 11

5 GHz: 36, 40, 44, 48, 149, 153, 157, 161
  • Avoid channel 165 if possible
  • Avoid DFS channels near an airport
  • If you are using DFS channels, broadcast the SSID in beacons for B3000n benefit

Roam Threshold

2 - May adjust based on AP density or Meru Virtual Cell

Max Number of SSIDs (for 2.4GHz radios)

5

Client Exclusions

Disabled

Authentication Timeouts

Add session timeout of at least 1 full shift

EAP Retry Timeout

200 milliseconds or lower

Max Retries

4

5 Ghz Channels in badge.properties (B3N.ChannelsToScan5G)

Must match 5Ghz channels enabled in the controller

Table 3. Multicast Recommendations

Setting

Recommended Value

IGMP on Badge

Enabled

IGMP V2 on Network

Enabled

Multicast Configuration

  • PIM (Sparse Mode or Sparse Dense Mode) must be applied to all Vocera VLANs and the WLC management VLAN

  • Enable IGMP Snooping on APs and all L2 devices in the multicast audio path

  • Block all unnecessary multicast traffic

  • Use Band Steering for data SSIDs to steer them towards 802.11a to reduce airtime contention

Reverse Path Forwarding

Enabled

Table 4. Association Delays Caused by Authentication

Authentication Type

Association Delay

Comments

PSK

< 100 ms

PSK often provides the optimal trade-off between security and performance.

EAP-FAST

LEAP

200 ms

Frequent session timeouts can result in additional delays

Note: For EAP-FAST, use CCKM and OKC to cache credentials and optimize roaming times

PEAP

EAP-TLS

Varies

The association delay caused by authentication varies based on the cipher strength (1024 bit or 2048 bit) and the depth of certificate chains

Note: For EAP-TLS, use CCKM and OKC to cache credentials and optimize roaming times