[ISP] Cisco WAP Issue

I work for a small ISP and we are running into an issue with a WAP that we deploy for W-STBs. I wanted to see what you guys think/suggest for testing.

 

Issue: We have an ONT/NID on-site that we have the WAP (Cisco VEN501) hooked up to (Wired) and we have W-STBs (ISB7105) hooked up to the WAP. We are running into an issue where our customer sees a loss of signal on all W-STBs and when we look into the NID we are not seeing any leases for the W-STBs. The issue is not affecting the wired STBs. To fix the issue we are having customer reboot the AP and sometimes reboot the W-STBs afterward.

 

*The Cisco VEN501 is at the current up to date firmware: 20.2.59.9-NA. The Cisco VEN501 also only uses 5Ghz and supports up to 802.11n.

 

We have tried to recreate this issue in our lab by taking some of the affected APs/W-STBs from customers and putting them in the lab but have been unsuccessful. We think it is environmental/interference but we are starting to see more and more of the issue. We have tried to hook up 4+ WAPs that were affected and turned off the auto channel changing and put them all on the same channel as well as turned on other wireless networks around the WAPs to dirty up the wireless in the lab as much as possible and still can't recreate the issue.

 

Possible Fix: We have deployed a test unit (802.11ac, 1700Mbps) to a customer that was having the issue daily and it seemed to fix the issue (Going on 2+ weeks without issue). And we are more than likely going to replace the Cisco VEN501 but I still would like to know what the issue would be instead of just replacing it and not knowing.

 

What do you guys think?