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Wireless Coverage

ismail884
Level 1
Level 1

Hi,

I need some information about Wireless deployement in a huge surface.I want to cover a surface of 40 ha that contains about 400 appartements and Villas.

Is there a solution to do that with a few number of Access Points?

Thanks

27 Replies 27

Alex Pfeil
Level 7
Level 7

Yes,

However,

You need to determine how good of coverage you are looking for. How many users you are going to have. The best way of determining how many access points you are going to need is to do a site survey. If all of the appartments and villas are the same. You could install a few access points and test the coverage. Move the access points as far away as possible as you test. If this is not feasible, you can have a company come out and do a wireless survey for you. There are different software products out there for site surveys and wireless planning as well. But, It might be cheaper to have somebody plan it for you. Just remember, if you use good access points (like cisco), they are going to be better at handling traffic and have a greater range right out of the box. Different access points use different antennas and the placement is vital. Hope this information is what you were looking for.

Thanks,

Alex

Alex is correct, a survey is essential.

Also, define your goals for the wifi network

Are you going to provide wireless to the outside areas or do you want the signal to penetrate the interior? You will have to survey from each level of the villas as the signal will not penetrate equally as the height increases

Do you have set policy for bandwidth and acceptable usage?

Have you set the expectations for what the wireless environment is like? It is much easier to appease end users if they have an idea of what to expect in terms of coverage, access times and speed

thanks for your reply.

I've do a site survey with Cisco AIRONET 1100. for the quality of Signal I look for "Good" or "Exellent" strenght.

the result of the site servey was:-implement an AP in each Appartement and 3 APs in each Villa, so it's so difficult to implement a Wireless Solution with this enormous number of APs.

have you any idea about another solution that permit to cover this surface.

many thanks

Ismail

The use of directional antennae would help.

Also, are you going to provide a as well as b/g?

Instead of using "good" or "excellent" as a measure, use the actual radio strength and throughput tools like iperf to measure quality.

You will also want to measure for interference and channel placement and overlap.

What radios/antennae are you going to use in the deployment?

Hi,

the goal of the solution that I look for is to provide Internet Access to all resident in this surface via Wireless.

for the type of Radios/antennas, I look for something that cover the almost possible surface.

with indoor AP I calculate that I will need about 500 APs.

have you any Idea about the Mesh solution with the AIRONET 1500 Series?

Thanks

The Mesh solution with the 1500 series is very nice, but also very expensive. You may come out even in $$ with the indoor radio deployment.

The # of radios+antennae required will depend upon what service level and area you want to cover.

How did you arrive at the 500 AP #? Are you providing signal down to the lowest bitrate or or are you basing your measurements upon highest bitrate?

when I did the site survey, I was in the obligation of installing the AP inside the appartement to have a good Signal,so 1 AP in each appartement( 1 AP * 380 App) and since the Villas have a huge surface I noted that I need to implement 2 AP in the RDC and 1 in the 1st Floor, so each Villa will have 3 AP (3 AP * 45).

Is the obligation to have an AP in each Apt? or just good signal. Depending upon construction materials and use of directional antennae, you can provide coverage. Here is an example

Floor3: |[AP>][>>>][>>] |

Floor2: |[ <<][<<<][<

Floor1: |[AP>>][>>>][>>] |

> = directional signal

[ ] = floor

I would like to add that you can use 25 foot extension cables for those antennas. We have used those for better coverage in areas of bad signal propagation for better coverage.

Thanks,

Alex

the obligation that we have is to obtain a good signal in each appartement, the construction materiels make obstacles to signal.

so when I put the AP outside to cover more than 1 appartement I note a very bad signal inside.

I would try installing an access point into a hallway, and running an antenna into two different apartments. Use a 25 foot extension cable and run one cable into one apartment and one into another. Therefore you would essentially get the coverage and be using one access point to cover 2 apartments. You could also try installing an access point in the attic in between 2 apartments as well.

NO NO NO!!!

An access point has two antenna mounts for a specific purpose. The purpose is to combat the effects of multipath. When using two antennas you need to keep the antennas in the same area. Seperating them out will look great on a survey, but will break on load.

Solutions like leaky coax can be used when you need to cover a large area but few users, but remember, these things are hubs, so you have to keep in mind the limitations you would put on a 10MB hub.

When you are talking WiFi, you are talking about radio signals. The only way you can increase range is by increasing signal gain or transmitter power. But as you increase gain and power, you also increase the area of coverage that will directly affect neighboring access points. (the exception is a leaky coax system)

When designing a wireless network you should be designing it based on the application and clients, not how to get the fewest number of access points. That is a sure way to lead to a poor design.

Hi,

To provide a solution to a client, it's so important to take in consideration the solution's cost. After the site survey that I did,and with results that I obtained, I could not provide a well design with considering Cost and easy management of the Wireless Network. It's not 30 or 40 APs, I talk about 500 APs to install to cover all the surface (40 ha).

True, but if the solution requires that kind of density, than that is what it requires. Deploying a bad solution is usually worse then no solution.

You probably should think outside of the box and look to deploy something else (Ethernet, LRE, DSL, etc), and deploy limited WiFi to the people that want/need it, and charge back appropriately.

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