Multiple SSID's performance

[_Glitch]

Hi there. Have a quick question for ya.
At work we have 4 SSID's per access point and 1 of them are never ever used.
Will shutting down that SSID result in better performance?
I was thinking SSID's can disturb each other just like 2 routers, but SSID's are not separate signals... right?

You are properly thinking, why not just turn it of regardless if it's not in use.
That's because i don't have access to do that, and i dont want to sound like an idiot when confronting the administrator about it.

 

[beers]

They send out beacons on that frequency but it should be minimal impact performance wise.

The main one you will have is client density per AP and how much airtime is being used per each channel

 

[Geoff]

If it's not being used, yes you should turn it off. Each AP transmits management traffic for each SSID.

Net = Net bandwidth available on an AP
Mgmt = Net bandwidth required per AP per SSID
VAP - Number of Virtual APs (SSIDs in this case)
Data = Net data throughput available for data traffic

Data = Net - (Mgmt * VAP)

Each additional SSID results in lower throughput available for data per AP. While this likely won't result in a huge increase in performance, it frees up airtime which then allows for more clients to transmit data and at a faster rate as there are less pauses in transmission while each SSID beacons their management traffic.

Many companies use a different SSID per VLAN or per encryption type, which really isn't ideal. You may have a "Staff" SSID, then a "Student" SSID, then a "Guest" SSID. While this works, you only hurt wireless performance and make it more complicated for the users. They should consider using policies with 802.1x authentication to move users over to their VLAN or restrictions based on their role, rather than making every user connect to a different SSID based on their role.

 

[_Glitch]

To both of you, thank you for your time. That was very informative.
I might send a link of this tread to the admin.