Central Questions in Wi-Fi Surveys

Lately I have been surveying quite a few properties. It seems that all my issues boil down to two central questions: how the network will be used and what is the biggest limiting factor in deployment?

In asking how it will be used, I ask questions like,

–Is this outdoor, indoor, or both?
–Is there roaming?
–How much bandwidth is needed from client-to-AP and from AP-to-AP?
–Where is the egress points for the WAN?
–How is this being paid for? (This gives me a very good idea how serious they are in building something well)

When asking these questions, I eventually get a sense of what they’re trying to do with wireless, and then I have a fairly good idea of the best products to use for their wireless solution. Ideally, I’ll also have a sense of what the limiting factors are. Sometimes, it’s not so obvious, and it’s helpful to ask what others have said (particularly other vendors) was the main problem with the deployment. Chances are that it’s some variation of something like terrain, environmentals, installers, budget, power, mounting rights, performance, coverage, aesthetics, etc.

I find that if I do not nail them down on the specifics of whatever is the most limiting factor, then I run the risk of having to do lots and lots of extra work once I find out that I have less options. For example, in a recent survey, I was told I had the poles to work with. I planned out a channel plan and brackets that would be most appropriate for that scenario, but then towards the end of the survey, I was told that maybe the poles were not available, due to everything being on the same circuit and also some concerns about aesthetics.

The poles are perfect for the area. On both sides of the poles are 6 story buildings, and 6 dbi antennas give me over almost 50-100m radius in some of top most rooms. Take out that mounting option, and I risk having to plan out building mounts which mean, (a) they’re harder to implement on a 5 story building, and (b) they’ll require more (building being covered will likely have too much Wi-Fi, leaving other areas that would otherwise be covered with an omni antenna too cold).

Budget is another common example. People often want great coverage but aren’t willing to pay for it, so I’m left with only putting single radios in areas with egress points or (ugh) meshing on single radios. And sometimes I might find the absolute perfect spot to mount, say, a central radio that I can PtMP with, however I soon find out that is unavailable due to the limitations or shortcomings of the installer.