Wireless Neighborhood

The Wireless Neighborhood view shows those access points within range of any access point in the cluster. This page provides a detailed view of neighboring access points including identifying information (SSIDs and MAC addresses) for each, cluster status (which are members and non-members), and statistical information such as the channel each AP is broadcasting on, signal strength, and so forth.

Understanding Wireless Neighborhood Information

The Wireless Neighborhood shows all access points within range of every member of the cluster, shows which access points are within range of which cluster members, and distinguishes between cluster members and non-members.

For each neighbor access point, the Wireless Neighborhood view shows identifying information (SSID or Network Name, IP Address, MAC address) along with radio statistics (signal strength, channel, beacon interval). You can click on an AP to get additional statistics about the APs in radio range of the currently selected AP.

The Wireless Neighborhood view can help you:

Detect and locate unexpected (or rogue) access points in a wireless domain so that you can take action to limit associated risks
Verify coverage expectations. By assessing which APs are visible at what signal strength from other APs, you can verify that the deployment meets your planning goals.
Detect faults. Unexpected changes in the coverage pattern are evident at a glance in the color coded table.

Viewing Wireless Neighborhood

Details about Wireless Neighborhood information shown is described below.

Field	Description
Display neighboring APs	Click one of the following radio buttons to change the view: In cluster - Shows only neighbor APs that are members of the cluster Not in cluster - Shows only neighbor APs that are not cluster members Both - Shows all neighbor APs (cluster members and non-members)
Cluster	The "Cluster" list at the top of the table shows IP addresses for all access points in the cluster. (This is the same list of cluster members shown on the Cluster > Access Points tab described in Understanding Clustering.) If there is only one AP in the cluster, only a single IP address column will be displayed here; indicating that the AP is "clustered with itself". You can click on an IP address to view more details on a particular AP.
Neighbors	Access points which are neighbors of one or more of the clustered APs are listed in the left column by SSID (Network Name) . An access point which is detected as a neighbor of a cluster member can also be a cluster member itself. Neighbors who are also cluster members are always shown at the top of the list with a heavy bar above and include a location indicator. The colored bars to the right of each AP in the Neighbors list shows the signal strength for each of the neighbor APs as detected by the cluster member whose IP address is shown at the top of the column: Dark Blue Bar - A dark blue bar and a high signal strength number (for example 50) indicates good signal strength detected from the Neighbor seen by the AP whose IP address is listed above that column. Lighter Blue Bar - A lighter blue bar and a lower signal strength number (for example 20 or lower) indicates medium or weak signal strength from the Neighbor seen by the AP whose IP address is listed above that column White Bar - A white bar and the number 0 indicates that a neighboring AP that was detected by one of the cluster members cannot be detected by the AP whose IP address if listed above that column. Light Gray Bar - A light gray bar and no signal strength number indicates a Neighbor that is detected by other cluster members but not by the AP whose IP address is listed above that column. Dark Gray Bar - A dark gray bar and no signal strength number indicates this is the AP whose IP address is listed above that column (since it is not applicable to show how well the AP can detect itself).

Viewing Details for a Cluster Member

To view details on a cluster member AP, click on the IP address of a cluster member at the top of the page.

The following table explains the details shown about the selected AP.

Field	Description
SSID	The Service Set Identifier (SSID) for the access point. The SSID is an alphanumeric string of up to 32 characters that uniquely identifies a wireless local area network. It is also referred to as the Network Name. The SSID is set in Basic Settings. (See Configuring Basic Settings) or in Advanced > Wireless Settings (see Setting the Wireless Interface.) A Guest network and an Internal network running on the same access point must always have two different network names.
MAC Address	Shows the MAC address of the neighboring access point. A MAC address is a hardware address that uniquely identifies each node of a network.
Channel	Shows the channel on which the access point is currently broadcasting. The Channel defines the portion of the radio spectrum that the radio uses for transmitting and receiving. The channel is set in Advanced > Radio Settings. (See Configuring Radio Settings.)
Rate	Shows the rate (in megabits per second) at which this access point is currently transmitting. The current rate will always be one of the rates shown in Supported Rates.
Signal	Indicates the strength of the radio signal emitting from this access point as measured in decibels (Db).
Beacon Interval	Shows the Beacon interval being used by this access point. Beacon frames are transmitted by an access point at regular intervals to announce the existence of the wireless network. The default behavior is to send a beacon frame once every 100 milliseconds (or 10 per second). The Beacon Interval is set on Advanced > Radio Settings. (See Configuring Radio Settings.)
Last Beacon (Beacon Age)	Shows the date and time of the most recent beacon was transmitted from the access point.

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