Don’t Fall Victim to the Most Common Wi-Fi Deployment Mistakes

▤ Summary

While one can understand the convenience of having Wi-Fi access outside the building near the entrances, often you find that signal can be easily be picked up a block away, or at the opposite end of the parking lot with your phone since 2.4 GHz has a good range. One can imagine that to eliminate costs, the company decides to skip site surveys and bet on manufacturers’ automatic selection features to figure out what channels and transmission power to use at a given location. I also remember when I was a young support rep and was troubleshooting issues with poor Wi-Fi performance, I would look and with the choices given by the UI controlling the access point I could only leverage a few things: The channel and width used (20 or 40 MHz at the time), the security settings for association (WPA2, WEP, Open) and the Transmission power. You may be tempted to simply crank up the transmission power in large increments leading to anything from co-channel interference, exposing your signal well beyond the required location, or interfering with other wireless devices (e.g. medical, industrial, neighbours, etc.). If you notice -3 dB (typical for glass or drywall) RSSI from -65dBmW outside to -68dBmW inside, then you can expect lower throughput in those offices with mediocre or poor quality in streaming… (remember video conference is big these days.).

▦ Linked Companies

WatchGuard

$250M to $500M