SonicOS 7.1 Access Points
- SonicOS 7.1 Access Points
- About SonicOS
- About Access Points
- Settings
- Synchronize Access Points
- Provisioning Overview
- Creating/Modifying Provisioning Profiles
- Adding/Editing a Provisioning Profile - Getting Started
- General Settings for Provisioning Profiles
- 5GHz/2.4GHz Radio Basic Settings for Provisioning Profiles
- 5GHz/2.4GHz Radio Advanced Settings for Provisioning Profiles
- Sensor Settings for WIDP in Provisioning Profiles
- Mesh Network Settings for Provisioning Profiles
- 3G/4G/LTE WWAN Settings for Provisioning Profiles
- Bluetooth LE Settings for Provisioning Profiles
- Deleting Access Point Profiles
- Product Specific Configuration Notes
- Managing Access Point Objects
- Firmware Management
- Floor Plan View
- Station Status
- Intrusion Detection Services
- Advanced IDP
- Packet Capture
- Virtual Access Points
- RF Monitoring
- RF Analysis
- RF Spectrum
- FairNet
- Wi-Fi Multimedia
- 3G/4G/LTE WWAN
- Bluetooth LE Devices
- Radio Management
- SonicWall Support
RF Analysis
RF Analysis (RFA) is a feature that helps you understand how wireless channels are utilized by the managed SonicWall access points and all other neighboring wireless access points. This section describes how to use the RF Analysis feature in SonicWall SonicOS to help best utilize the wireless bandwidth with wireless access point appliances.
SonicWall RF Analysis can analyze third-party access points and include these statistics in the RF data as long as at least one SonicWall access point is present and managed through the SonicWall firewall.
Choosing RF Analysis
Deploying and maintaining wireless infrastructure can be a daunting task for the network administrator. Wireless issues, such as low performance and poor connectivity are issues that wireless network administrators often face, but ironically, these issues can usually be resolved simply analyzing and properly tuning radio settings.
RFA is a tool that brings awareness to these potential wireless issues. The two main issues that RFA deals with are overloaded channels and SonicWall access point interference with adjacent channels. RF Analysis calculates an RF score for each operational access point and displays the data in a way that allows you to identify access points operating in poor RF environment.
The RF Environment
The IEEE 802.11 specified that devices use ISM 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands, and most of the currently deployed wireless devices use the 2.4 GHz band. Because each channel occupies 20 MHz wide spectrum, only three channels out of the 11 available are not overlapping. In the United States, channels 1, 6, and 11 do not overlap. In most cases, these are the three channels used when deploying a large number of SonicWall access points.
SonicPoint Manual Channel Selection
The whole 2.4GHz band is segmented into three separate channels 1, 6, and 11. To achieve this ideal scenario, two factors are necessary: channel allocation and power adjustment. In most scenarios, it is best to assign neighboring SonicPoints to different channels. SonicPoint transmit power should also be watched carefully, as it needs to be strong enough for nearby clients to connect, but not so powerful that causes interference to otherSonicPoints operating within the same channel.
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