Categories


Authors

SOHO Wireless Optimization

The MikroTik Security Guide and Networking with MikroTik: MTCNA Study Guide by Tyler Hart are available in paperback and Kindle!

Mikrotik SOHO (Small Office, Home Office) wireless products are incredibly versatile, and there are many flexible settings for Wireless interfaces in "Simple" mode. "Advanced" mode gives access to highly-tunable wireless features, some of which should be tweaked. Many SOHO models like the RB-750 and RB-951 come with fairly good wireless settings already in place, but with a few changes you can improve wireless connectivity significantly, and accommodate more wireless clients.

 This is very important if you're putting a SOHO model into a small / branch office with more than a few users. Considering the prevalence of end-user smart phones, tablets, and laptops in offices, the load on wireless networks is growing. If wireless infrastructure isn't tuned properly it will quickly become apparent that connectivity isn't robust enough.

The following wireless interface options (most located in "Advanced" menus) can improve connectivity significantly for SOHO routers:

frequency-mode=regulatory-domain country=united states
frequency=auto
channel-width=20mhz
wireless-protocol=802.11
distance=indoors

This copy-and-paste command can be run on RB751/951 models to apply settings above:

/interface wireless set wlan1 mode=ap-bridge wireless-protocol=802.11 frequency=auto band=2ghz-b/g/n channel-width=20mhz distance=indoors frequency-mode=regulatory-domain country="united states"

Obviously the first setting's country designation is specific to the United States - change as needed for your country. Some of these options are now defaults in the latest version of RouterOS, however those defaults have not always been the case, and I'm sure defaults will be updated in later releases of RouterOS.

 These settings aren't always explained in-depth in Mikrotik wireless documentation, however I've found these settings to create the most robust wireless performance. There has been much discussion online in other forums as well around wireless optimization that confirms these settings. Wireless network performance can be seen by viewing a wireless interface's Overall Tx CCQ (Client Connection Quality).

Here is an RB-751 I currently have in service:

Overall Tx CCQ % with advanced settings applied

When deploying newer RB-951 models running stock wireless configuration I typically saw CCQ < 60%, which obviously leaves room for improvement. 

I recommend watching CCQ for a couple hours on a busy wireless network to establish a baseline, then changing those advanced settings shown above, one at a time to see how it affects CCQ. Not all of those settings are appropriate for all installations, but if you can recognize a 10% or 20% improvement in CCQ your users will appreciate it.

NAT Port Forwarding