It can take a lot of access points to give blanket coverage for a build, because just when you think that you have all the spots covered, someone will find a spot in the whole building that doesn't have access. I think sometimes that people just go around looking for a deadzone.
In one of my schools there is 37 access points, it would be a full time job to correctly configure all those access points to work correctly. Like I have stated in previous blogs, you have to survey the building for wall density, calculate for a common receiving area, placement for adjacent access points.
Building Structure
When you are in the process of finding a place to put the access, you need to look at a couple of things. 1) Remember an access point emits radio wave, and all radio waves travel in a clear line of sight. 2) Don't put the access point to close to a wall, you need a good centrical wave pattern. 3) Radio wave will go through walls, but you loose speed and bandwidth throughput. Don't try to broadcast through concrete, it may go through. but you wont be happy with the results. Always spring for another access point.
AP Placement
When you are mounting you APs you need to keep a couple things in mind. 1) you need to adjust channels on the AP's to not conflict with each other. When you have AP's that are adjacent to each other that are on the same channel they are going to butt heads, you can see in my previous blog for example. 2) If you have the AP's to close together, the client workstation with jump back and forth between the APs. This toggling of wireless connectivity will cause problems with the client, so one of the AP broadcasting power needs to reduced.
Now couple all that with other features that can be provided via stand alone access points, like multiple SSids, Radius Accounting and Authentication. You can see why you need a device to manage all you access points. So stay tuned for an introduction to a Wireless Lan Controller (WLC).
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