Switching from omni to sectors

[wwalcher]

I am getting ready to switch one of my POPs from an omni to three sectors. What is the best way to do this? I can see two approaches:

1. Different SSID's for each sector - transition customer radios over
Upside - no associations with wrong sector
Downside - conversion hassle

2. Same SSID's for each sector (different channels)
Upside - no change to customer radios
Downside - customers could associate with wrong sector, leading to weak signal (Using access lists to limit this could solve this problem)

So, what is the best approach?

[go.fast]

You could add the other two sectors and leave the omni for the time being.
Then after you have the subs moved over to the other two sectors that you want moved, change the omni to a sector.
You may also want to use a Horizontal sector for your middle channel if you are using Verticle right now, of course that means flipping some antennas, but think of the isolation.
George

[lonnie]

go.fast - that is quite workable and we use that approach when making major changes. It easy to duplicate a system and then phase out the old system as you move users to new system.

You can also make them both the same ESSID and use MAC ACL in the driver to kick low signal users to the next AP.