by Bill Dunsing
If
you haven’t noticed lately, wireless (WiFi) networks are almost everywhere!
Just like common utilities such as water and electricity, consumers are
demanding wifi wherever they are - hotels, restaurants, homes, workplaces, and
even airplanes, buses and subways! The ability to connect from any place,
at any time, with any device is quickly becoming a necessity and a reality.
Anyone
that knows me professionally knows the first two words out of my mouth when
discussing any wireless opportunity are “Site Survey”. A great end user
experience comes from a well-designed network, which starts with a wireless
survey.
An
onsite wireless survey can be one of the most crucial elements of the
deployment. It’s during this phase that the engineer observes, tests and
records RF behavior, coverage, and interference, then uses this information to
determine AP placement.
Additionally,
the documentation created can serve as an inventory, technical and
troubleshooting tool.
Why
then, do customers “waive” this crucial component? Beats me! Yet
many customers do.
Part
of the answer may lie in the cost of wireless surveys. A customer may
feel their small area should just need a couple of AP’s, and how hard can that
be to figure out? Why pay for something that should be very simple?
My answer is this: many small office deployments fall prey to the same RF
issues and pitfalls as an enterprise deployment. Interference from
non-wifi devices, architectural elements of the building and capabilities of
the devices that will be used on the network all need to be considered.
How do you know what to look for? That’s where the engineer’s experience
and talent come into play, and this is what you are paying for.
We
recently worked with a customer that refused our design services up front, and
after installing AP’s with their ‘educated guess’ method asked us to return
onsite to correct all the issues they had. Where a site survey and design
would have cost them ‘x’ dollars up front, the proposed fix cost them ‘6x’
dollars!
A
major trend in the wireless industry and business world is BYOD – Bring Your
Own Device. What was once an ancillary service – wireless networking –
has now become a ‘must have’ technology as students, workers, and casual users
look for the nearest on-ramp to the internet while using their personally owned
devices. Secure, reliable, speedy access is expected, and business owners
are struggling to provide it.
We
can make that struggle far less painful! Let us use our talent, experience and
industry knowledge to DESIGN your next wireless network. Avoid the
problems on the back end, by investing in professional design on the front end.
On Friday August 9th, Emerge along with Veeam and Nimble Storage will be hosting a premier showing of Elysium at Newport of the Levee. Please RSVP to join us for great information from Nimble and Veeam and this exciting premier! 
Anyone
that knows me professionally knows the first two words out of my mouth when
discussing any wireless opportunity are “Site Survey”. A great end user
experience comes from a well-designed network, which starts with a wireless
survey.
Check out this CNBC viedo where Tim Schigel,