Wireless Thoughts

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.