AP Name Broadcast: Which AP Vendors support this?

AP Name Broadcast: Which AP Vendors support this?
*As I understand it, current Wi-Fi vendor support for AP name broadcast

Preface

I am keen to keep the information on this page up to date and accurate! If you have corrections or would like to add details to the content of this page, please, please contact me, either via the comments section or directly!
@nickjvturner@mastodon.social
@nickjvturner

If you would like to contribute, please refer to this post regarding the detail I am looking to collect: Can You Help?

Here is a table (as I understand the current situation) detailing Wi-Fi Vendor support for broadcasting the AP hostname.

Supported

Not Supported

Display Filters & Example PCAPs

Meraki

AP Name Broadcast with Meraki APs - CCX-Naming

Per this tweet by Garrett Packer AP Name broadcast on Meraki APs became "disabled by default" in firmware/code 25.13

This feature can be enabled by request to Meraki Support.
Per device or network granularity available.

Meraki APs may include the Model Number in the AP Name field when operating in "site survey mode"

Thank you to Craig Schnarrs and everybody who has assisted crowdsourcing the data to populate this table.

Cisco

Aironet Extensions - A proprietary feature implemented by Cisco

Aironet Extensions make additional information about the Access Points available, including but not limited to:

  • Device Name
  • Device Type
  • Radio Type - used to determine certain characteristics about the radio, such as data rate, radio type (1310, 1200, 352 or 342), security type (WEP/802.1x), etc.
  • Current Access Point load
  • Number of associated clients

Devices that are CCX compatible also can take advantage of some of the Aironet Extension features.

Additional Note:

Although Aironet Extensions is enabled by default, best practice guides suggest disabling this feature unless CCX compatible devices are on your WLAN.

(Thank you to Scott Stapleton)

Download PCAP: AP Name Cisco

Aruba

Reference Article: AirHeads Community

Thank you to Jake Snyder, @jsnyder81 for assisting with the max character length.

Download PCAP: AP Name Aruba

As of 8.4.0.0 Aruba Instant APs can now "advertise-ap-name"
Thank you to Aaron
Tweet Proof right here

Extreme Networks

Extreme Wireless WiNG

wing-extensions

Enables support for WiNG-specific client extensions to the IEEE 802.11x WLAN standards that potentially increase client roaming reliability and handshake speed.

wing-extensions

Enables support for inclusion of WiNG-specific client extensions in radio transmissions

ap-attributes-information {include-hostname}

Enables support for AP attributes information element (IE)

  • include-hostname – Optional
    When enabled, includes AP’s hostname, as a sub-element, in the AP attributes IE

The AP attributes IE is vendor-specific and, when enabled, is added to beacons and probe responses. Inclusion of AP attributes IE allows Zebra terminals to:

  • Recognise ExtremeWing ( / Zebra ) APs
  • Determine if the AP supports PAN BU features, irrespective of whether these features are enabled or not.

Note: AP attributes IE is not added to beacons and probe responses by default.

Reference Material: WiNG 5.8.2 CLI Reference Guide (Page 736)

  • This functionality may be configured per WLAN policy
  • It is not necessarily enabled for all APs or all WLAN/SSIDs configured per AP

Extreme Networks

ExtremeWireless / IdentiFi

LED: State > Identify

Reference Article: How to have an Access Point Name show up in beacons for a site survey report

Download PCAP: AP Name Extreme
Thank you to @Beamflash for sharing the PCAP

LANCOM

...

Xirrus

No support for AP Name Broadcast, thank you to @adventureMatt

Aerohive

The feature came to light in May 2018, thank you to Mark Elley

Download PCAP: AP Name Aerohive

MikroTik

Download PCAP: AP Name MikroTik

Arista

Arista AP models 2xx onwards now support AP broadcast in the beacon frame (Since AP firmware 13.0).

Thank you to Bhupinder Misra for taking the time to share this with me!

Download PCAP: AP Name Arista

Ruckus

AP Hostname Advertisement

Ruckus introduced this feature along with SmartZone (SZ) 6.0

Shoutout to Keith Miller for his blog article detailing how to enable this feature
https://www.thepacketologist.com/2021/10/say-my-name-say-my-name/

In August 2023 Jim Palmer shared the following:

On a RUCKUS SZ controller you can enter 64 characters into the AP hostname field which are broadcast and detectable by Wi-Fi Explorer Pro (and presumably Ekahau)

and...

On the RUCKUS One platform, you can enter 32 characters into the AP hostname field, which are broadcast and detectable by Wi-Fi Explorer Pro (and presumably Ekahau)

Footnote

Huge thank you to Adrian Granados @adriangranados for the PCAP files!

You can find an introductory post on this topic: Here on the Ekahau Blog