Cisco has released WLC 7.6.100.0 code (on 18th Dec 2013) to support new 3700 series AP which supports 802.11ac. Cisco 3700 AP supports 1.3Gbps data rate (wave1 of 802.11ac) with 4×4 MIMO & 3SS (Spatial Streams). Even though AP supports 1.3 Gbps limiting factor would be the 1G Ethernet port (at switch end & AP end).
To get the first hand experience, we have decided to upgrade one of our 5508 WLC to 7.6.100.0 release & get couple of existing 3600 AP swapped with 3700. Like any other software releases, this code comes with loads of un-resolved bugs. So carefully review the full release notes prior to upgrade your controller into this.
Below shows simple testing scenario we used to measure the performance of 802.11ac capable clients. We had 3 different products which supports 802.11ac, Google Nexus 5 (1SS), Samsung Galaxy S4 (1SS) & Macbook Air (2SS). I have used iPhone5 (802.11n only)
802.11ac only support in 5GHz & You have to set 80MHz channel width as 802.11ac use 4 channels bonding together to give higher throughput. So here is my WLC 802.11a/n/ac band DCA settings.
I have let RRM to determine the Channel allocation & power levels based on the environment. Here what my 3702 AP settles into.
Here is what I see few minutes later on the client association on this AP. As you can see there are 3 clients connected in 802.11ac mode & others with 802.11n in 5GHz band. (Note that I have disable 2.4GHz band on this AP)
Then to measure the throughput, we have measure the upload & download speed with iperf application. I have measured data in each 1s interval for 5min duration.
Here is the result with MacBook Air. Once you connected to the SSID, you will see the data rate as 867Mbps (This is max data rate this client supported & not the actual throughput)
Here is the actual download throughput of MBA over 5 min period. We got around 236Mbps in average.
Here is the actual upload throughput of MBA over 5 min period. Average upload throughput is 290Mbps.
If you connect 1SS devices like Nexus5 or Samsung S4, you will see data rate as 433Mbps. Again this is not the real throughput & here are the throughput result we got for Nexus 5.
Here is what we got for Samsung S4.
To comparison I have take iPhone5 download throughput. We got around 88Mbps in average.
As you can see the overall performance is very good & clients are getting very high throughput. But still I feel 802.11ac performance is fluctuating drastically compare to 802.11n result.
We have to wait & see when more & more devices comes with 802.11ac to bench mark the 802.11ac performance.
