FortiAP loss of connection during bell

[Soutienti]

Hello,

I have a really strange problem for a long time. I work in a school with more than 50 AP and a lot of users. when the bell rings a few seconds before during and a few seconds after the wifi connection is cut. the connection with the antenna is lost. whether on PC, MAC, IPAD. we have several models of fortiAP ; FP321C, FP221C, FP2211E, etc.

a FortiGate 501E

I have the problem everywhere. the devices loses connection with the antenna. it's not very long (maybe 1 min)

for the bell system we use the system Équinoxe.

have you ever seen such a problem? certainly a frequency problem? 

In the beginning, I checked the schedule, but time doesn't match.

thanks a lot for your help

[Anthony_E]

Hello Soutienti,

I have found this document:

https://docs.fortinet.com/document/fortiap/6.4.3/fortiwifi-and-fortiap-configuration-guide/266575/fo...

Could you please tell me if it helped?

If not, we will continue to look for a solution.

Regards,

[Debbie_FTNT]

Hey Soutienti,

If the power/signal connection to the bell, or the bell itself, is not sufficiently shielded, then each time the bell rings there could be a burst of noise in the frequency spectrum used by WiFi, which would interrupt all connections. If your APs communicate with each other wirelessly, not via ethernet, then the connection between the APs would also break down.

You would need to run some kind of wireless survey/detection while the bell rings to see if this is definitely the case.

You could also have a look on the WiFi dashboard of FortiGate if you notice any signal dip in signal strength or loss of connection to FortiAPs.

As a quick test, you could use a mobile to set up a Wi-Fi hotspot and connect a client, wait until the bell rings, and see if that also suffers a loss of connection.

It would also be helpful to know:
- is this in 2.4 or 5 GHz band? If both, are both bands affected or only one of them?

- What channels are you using?

- do you monitor your Wi-Fi for interference/rogue APs/other SSIDs?