Aruba Migration Guide

802.11AC MIGRATION GUIDE

802.11ac

Aruba Migration Guide

Table of Contents
Introduction 802.11AC basics Why 802.11ac? 802.11ac technology overview Backward compatibility RF spectrum Multistation MAC throughput > 1 Gbps 256 QAM Wider channels More spatial streams Downlink multi-user MIMO Pros of 802.11ac Cons of 802.11ac Strategy and planning for 802.11ac migration Site planning basics Planning process Minimum requirements and actions to implement 802.11ac Aruba recommendations for 802.11ac migration General Capacity RF planning Installation Wireless RF coverage considerations and questionnaire Summary 3 3 3 4 4 4 5 5 5 5 6 6 6 6 6 6 7 8 8 8 8 8 9 10

Aruba Networks, Inc.

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802.11ac

Aruba Migration Guide

Introduction
Wi-Fi has become such an amazingly successful technology because it has continuously advanced while remaining backwards compatible. The current state-of-the-art Wi-Fi is known as Wi-Fi CERTIFIED n or 802.11n. 802.11n has become popular because it improves performance. As 802.11n has become a standard interface on PCs, tablets and smartphones, the applications used by these devices have continued to progress. Mobile technology has encountered the next frontier – video. Whether delivering YouTube to smartphones or moving HDTV signals around the office or home, video has become a significant driver of network traffic, chiefly because it requires one or two orders of magnitude more bandwidth than other IP services. Now the 100 Mbps or 200 Mbps rates enabled by 802.11n, breakthrough figures that put it on a par with 10/100 Mbps Ethernet just a few years ago seem barely adequate for some emerging video applications. The next step in improving performance is 802.11ac, with speeds up to 1.3 Gbps in 2013 and much higher by 2015. The purpose of this paper is to provide a level of guidance towards the migration to