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I have a question about Best practices for Channel Planning and use of "Auto Channel" in high Density AP environments such as Residential MDUs that are also filled with CATV/FIOS Wi-Fi modems, printers, hotspots, etc..

Many of the AP manufacturers strongly advocate for use of Au/to Channel Auto Power.

We find that that only really works in smaller, contained and manageable office environments that do not have excessive Rogue devices.

What is the best practice for environments in which these Rogues number in the hundreds, if not more in a dense residential environment?  Typically we see significant channel hopping, which also then causes some of the more advanced cable modems to also auto channel, which then causes the APs to re-auto channel and it becomes a vicious cycle.

Would love some independent CWNE feedback here.

Thank you!

This is old and I'm not a CWNE but I've worked in the MDU environment before. 

Use RRM and let DCA do it's work. However, Cambium, Ruckus, and Cisco will all let you adjust the window for changes. It is best practice to set a change window. I set ours to 2am and forced our APs to sit on the current channel until the next change window. The only exception would be APs operating in 5.4 or 5.2 DFS ranges. These APs will, maybe, DFS at some point and have to move channels. This may not be an issue for you, depending on the geographical location of your sites. 

Also, if you are in any bandwidth other than 20MHz, push to drop your bandwidth to 20MHz. Those MDUs have quite a few competitive devices from ATT, Spectrum, etc etc. All of their devices will typically be pushing 80MHz and full TX power out of the box. Decreasing your bandwidth can help the client devices maintain a stable connection to your APs. Smaller bandwidth tends to improve connectivity in loud environments and will also allow your controller to "find" that cleanest possible channel.