Are Wireless Site Surveys Worth The Cost?

At the time of wireless network design: there weren't many wireless network planning tools. So, to design wireless for a new building, we took a floor plan and literally plotted the locations of access points, power settings, channel settings, etc. A wireless engineer should always be on site. They were about to install a Wireless Site Survey Cost that included the access point model they had planned to use, antennas and some software running on a laptop. Then they physically walked around the building to test the coverage area in the real world. Needless to say, it was a very long but necessary process to ensure that the system had the coverage it needed and that the system did not actually interfere with itself (which can happen when two access points in the same area use the same channel).

The world of wireless design is different today: For example, most wireless networking solutions for a university or hospital campus wireless network will automatically adjust power and channel settings so you don't have to set everything up manually. This makes the planning process much easier. Another tool we have now that we didn't have in the old days is a fantastic wireless planning software that will fill a floor plan with access point locations, expected coverage and also tell you the angles of the signal transmitted by the antennas ... interesting things for wireless network fanatics like us.

Here are some reasons why I think you will need a wireless engineer to work with you in the design:

1) Devices and applications are complex: wireless planning is no longer just about covering an area. It is about being able to support the capacity of devices on the network, sometimes 3 to 5 devices per user. And it's about being able to deliver the performance levels required by applications. Even if you are using predictive wireless planning software, most are based on coverage only. You need to have a plan that also includes capacity and performance.

2) Wireless networks are essential: when started implementing the wireless infrastructure years ago, most of the systems we were installing were primarily for accessing wireless access points. Like wireless student networks in schools or guest access in retail stores. Of course, since then, wireless speeds have become faster and faster (wireless gigabit is coming) and everything becomes mobile. Today we have hospitals with wireless insulin pumps, nurse call systems and barcode scanners for prescription drugs, all over Wi-Fi. These same school systems that we started implementing years ago now stream video wirelessly and many test systems use Wi-Fi. Today's wireless networks are not pleasant, it is a critical system that can never fail.