tech/cisco/wireless

WIRELESS

Cisco wireless — Catalyst Wi-Fi (WLC), Meraki cloud-managed, access point deployment, RF design.

production

requires: tech/cisco

improves: tech/cisco

Cisco Wireless

Stub — full skill pending. Core patterns documented below.

Platform choice

Platform	Management	Best for
Catalyst 9800 WLC	On-prem or cloud (C9800-CL)	Enterprise, high density, full IOS-XE feature set
Meraki MR	Meraki Dashboard (cloud)	Distributed sites, quick deploy, SD-WAN integration
Embedded WLC (EWC)	AP acts as controller	Small branch, <100 APs

SSID config (Catalyst 9800)

! WLAN profile
wlan CORP_WIFI 1 CORP_WIFI
 security wpa psk set-key ascii 0 MyPassphrase
 security wpa akm psk
 no shutdown

! Policy profile (maps to VLAN)
wireless profile policy CORP_POLICY
 vlan 20
 no shutdown

! Tag binding
wireless tag policy CORP_TAG
 wlan CORP_WIFI policy CORP_POLICY

RF design principles

2.4 GHz: 3 non-overlapping channels (1, 6, 11); use for IoT/legacy only
5 GHz: 20+ non-overlapping channels (UNII-1/2/3); primary for data
6 GHz (Wi-Fi 6E): Catalyst 9136/9166; clean band, 1200 MHz spectrum
Cell sizing: -67 dBm minimum RSSI for voice; -72 dBm for data
AP density: 1 AP per 25-30 users in high-density (boardrooms, trading floors)

Gotchas

Meraki requires cloud connectivity to function — local breakout fails if Meraki cloud unreachable
9800 WLC high availability requires SSO config; active/standby pair shares single IP
802.11r (fast BSS transition) must be enabled for seamless roaming with voice/video
DFS channels (5 GHz) trigger radar detection and AP channel change — avoid for latency-sensitive deployments