Question 1

Wondering if this would cover a 20,000 sq. ft. building.  One on each floor?

Accepted Answer

The answer is it totally depends on the specific environment.  Open warehouse space vs. Office Cube farm vs. closed office area all have different performance characteristics because of the attentuation of the walls, structures present etc.I am a wireless engineer for a major enterprise, we have approximately 2500 access points, and the deployment varies depending on the customer type and the building type.I have areas that have a density as high as 1 access point for every 2500 sq. ft. and some areas that run 1 access point for every 10000 sq. ft.For example, if you were to do voice over your wireless, you would need the higher density (voice is more demanding than just data)Clients vary widely too, laptops and tablets typically have far better radios in them than smartphones, and different smartphones can behave differently (apple devices notoriously suck at wireless in my experience).Also, there are 2 different frequencies that the clients and access points can communicate at, 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz.  Roughly speaking, the 2.4 Ghz (802.11b/G) has twice the range and twice the penetration though walls as 5 Ghz.  The good news is clients and the access point generally switch dynamically between the two, choosing whichever is best.The other thing to consider is the amount / type of traffic you intend to send over the wireless.  Web browsing and email are typically lower throughput demand than large file transfers or streaming video content.  When a client is close to the access point it is able to connect at the maximum speed, but as the client gets farther away and the signal strength between the client and the access point degrades, the system dynamically shifts to slower speeds to ensure the integrity of the data traffic.If I was to do a blind guess, you have at least a two story building, presuming that all floors are the same size, 1 per floor (10,000 sq. ft. each) in the middle of each floor might get you by, if it were a 4 story building, making each floor 5000 sq. ft., then I would be much more confident in your success chances.   I would likely do at least 1 per 10000 sq. ft. in an open warehouse/factory, 1 per 5000 sq. ft. in a cube farm, 1 per 3000 sq. ft. in a walled office/ hotel type environment.One other thing to consider is where the users are in the building that are most likely to use the service, if they tend to concentrate in one area, like a conference room, you might want to place the access points closer to those areas, rather than just geographically centered in the building.

Question 2

Can i convert this to a standalone?

Accepted Answer

It depends on the model access point you are trying to convert. If it is a model that can be converted you will need a Cisco Smartnet contract to change the firmware and you will need to buy a power injector to get power to the unit as a stand alone.

Question 3

Looking for a good cisco mr18 upgrade to newer and faster. how would this work?

Accepted Answer

3802i, 2802i are good models.  You can order them with mobility express code for smaller deployments.  Try to get the latest 8.5 code from cisco tac.

Question 4

Is the air-cap2602i-a-k9 items eligible to have a smartnet agreement assigned to them?

Accepted Answer

If the serial number has not been previously been under a Smartnet contract, usually
you can get a Smartnet contract for them.  When purchasing note " must be clean serial numbers".
That should help.

Brand	Cisco
Product Dimensions	22.86 x 5.08 x 22.86 cm; 907.18 g
Item model number	AIR-CAP2602I-A-K9
Manufacturer	CISCO SYSTEMS - ENTERPRISE
RAM Size	256 MB
Wireless Type	802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n
Operating System	RouterOS
Are Batteries Included	No
Item Weight	907 g
Guaranteed software updates until	unknown

Cisco Wireless Networking (AIR-CAP2602I-A-K9)

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