Professional site survey and heatmapping tool for $399? You kidding me?

No, I’m not.

We just released a $399 site survey and heatmapping tool for Android tablets and phones. The product is called Ekahau Mobile Survey 2.0. Thanks to the touch-operated, simple user interface, I believe it’s the most user-friendly enterprise-grade Wi-Fi tool out there .

It’s targeted at IT administrators of small to medium-size networks (think 3 to 50 APs), who don’t necessarily want to spend thousands of dollars on a verification and analysis tool, but could spend $399.

And, of course, it’s targeted for you wireless professionals who want to use a lighter, touch-operated solution – if not for every installation, then at times. It’s also great for making sure the network works on the tablet or phone, which would represent a typical end user device.

The integration with Ekahau Site Survey allows you to get projects from Ekahau Site Survey to your tablet or phone. More importantly, it allows you to perform a survey on a tablet or a phone, and then export that to Ekahau Site Survey for in-depth analysis and reporting.

Because Ekahau Mobile Survey 2.0 is affordable, companies with a larger number of engineers can now easily equip all of those with a professional tool. 

Naturally, the tool comes with all the features in Ekahau Mobile Survey 1.0, it’ also a great on-the-spot analysis and troubleshooting tool. And, it’s the only tool to perform continual monitoring from the end user device perspective.

—
Jussi / Ekahau 

Large-scale Wi-Fi site surveys causing your back and biceps to hurt?

Performing large-scale, on-site walk-through site surveys, carrying a laptop, can get to your back, biceps, and posture. Many of us have walked through huge hospitals and universities, and inventing all kinds of straps and backpack-style solutions for balancing the weight of the laptop.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a lighter-weight alternative? Perhaps something easier to use and more affordable, too, so that you could equip more engineers with these solutions?

I sure think so.

—
Jussi Kiviniemi / Ekahau

Ekahau Live @ Wireless Field Day: Tune in tomorrow Thursday at 1:30pm pacific time, 4:30pm Eastern

 > Check the Wireless Field Day coverage LIVE tomorrow at 1:30pm pacific US time HERE!

(never mind if that page says 12 noon or something like that, we’ll fix it. The correct time is 1:30pm)

• We will be revealing a brand new product and demoing it.
• We will be explaining why capacity matters and showing how to design for capacity.
• And we will be talking about real-time location systems – and demoing them

 > Check the Wireless Field Day coverage LIVE tomorrow at 1:30 HERE!

We will also be providing a recording of the session later for those who can’t watch the live stream.

Ekahau at Wireless Field Day 2: Wi-Fi Capacity, Easier Site Surveys, RTLS, and More!

Interested in what’s new with high-performance Wi-Fi network life cycle management?
(that’s just a fancy way to say planning and maintaining Wi-Fi networks)

Want to learn more about real-time location systems, but not the sales pitch but honest discussion?

Want to be the first to hear the latest Ekahau product news?

On January 26th, Ekahau will be presenting for 2 hours at the Wireless Field Day 2 event. We will discuss wireless design and deployment, Wi-Fi capacity, enterprise location tracking, and announcing a new product too!

Wireless Field Day is an event where vendors and bloggers get together to discuss what’s new in the industry.

When? January 26^th at around 12 noon pacific time (21.00 [9pm] Central European Time)
Where? We’ll post a link to the live stream as we get closer to the event. The event will also be recorded and we’ll have the recording for you, too.
More info? Wireless Field Day 2 pages can be found here

Wi-Fi Capacity Part 2: Designing a High Capacity Wi-Fi Network

How To Design A Network For High Capacity?

When designing a network for high capacity, keeping a few basic things in mind will take you pretty far. Some of those are listed below. At the bottom of the article are a example images on creating a high capacity Wi-Fi network.

• You now will have two basic requirements: Signal coverage, and capacity. Both requirements need to be met.
• You may have additional requirements too, like minimum AP overlap, or minimum data rate
• Carefully calculate how many Wi-Fi client devices (laptops, smartphones, tablets, etc)  you have today, and how many you will have 2 years from now
• Estimate which applications are used on each device type. For example, smartphones that are used for Skype calls and Youtube HD videos cause much more – and different type of – traffic than laptops used for e-mails.
• Take the number of client devices and their types into consideration when figuring out the placement and capabilities of the access points
• Careful with the walls: Thick and thin walls, windows, and doors make a difference to the coverage. Very rarely is the coverage pattern of an AP circular in a real-world environment.
• Think 3D! When talking about high capacity, the signal (and intereference) bleed through floors plays an increasingly large role: Staggering the APs in different locations between floors is critical, as is floor-to-floor channel optimization.
• Go with 802.11n (minimum 2 spatial streams, utilize channel bonding on 5GHz)
• As a general rule, force all the devices you can to 5GHz. Leave 2.4GHz to legacy and specialty devices.
• Minimize the cell size of the access points so that enough calls can be served and enough overall data can be transmitted
• If done manually, pay extra attention to channel planning
• Reduce the Tx power on the access points to avoid interference (if dynamic Tx power adjustments are not used)
• After planning the network, perform walk-through site surveys on-site to see how well the real world matches with the plan
• Once the network has been taken to production use, monitor it from the client device perspective, using actual client devices. Tools like Mobile Survey Wi-Fi Android App are great for continuous monitoring from the client-device point-of-view.

Below are a few examples of how it looks like when planning a network for coverage and capacity using a software tool.

The software tool suggests AP locations and configurations after you tell it how much coverage and capacity is needed. It also accounts for walls, and different floors of a building.

—

Jussi Kiviniemi
Ekahau

Starting to create a network plan automatically. The tool allows you to insert coverage and capacity requirements. Once you hit "Create Plan", the tool will suggest AP placement & configurations.

Going into details: When planning for capacity, consider the applications run on the devices

End result: Dual-radio 802.11n access points placed and configured automatically on 3 floors. Showing signal strength coverage map. You can (and should) fine-tune the computer-generated plan.

The same end result looking from the capacity point-of-view: The number of devices for the entire building, and for this map shown in the bottom right corner. All is green so all is good. If there were different shades of red on the map, it would have indicated problems with VoIP capacity, too many associations for some APs, or an overall RF capacity overload.

Five Ways Impove Wi-Fi Coverage in Your Small Office (Cisco Blog)

Sampa Choudhuri wrote an excellent post to the Cisco Blog about how to improve your small office Wi-Fi network.

She was nice enough to recommend our free of charge HeatMapper for coverage mapping, too.

 > Read the post here!

Video: Innsbruck Hospital Emergency Call – Location Enabled Alarm System – Now With English Subs

The excellent video of an emergency call system in Innsbruck now has English subtitles for us that kein Deutsch sprechen (or something like that).

 > Watch the video on Youtube

Ekahau Webinar This Wednesday: Design and Deploy Better Wi-Fi Networks

We will show, hands-on, how to design, deploy (site survey), and troubleshoot Wi-Fi networks.

Coverage, performance, and capacity are all considered.

We will also showcase our new Wi-Fi monitoring and troubleshooting tool that runs on Android tablets and smartphones.

> Register Here

Ekahau R&D Meeting Notes Illustrated ;)

Today we had R&D present their best practices over (a fatty and carb-intensive) breakfast. We take pride in having a highly skilled, motivated R&D team making high quality products using whichever methods that make the most sense.

So much for the serious stuff.

Below are some illustrations about the discussions

First, we talked about the benefits of Agile Programming

Dilbert About Agile Programming

 

Dilbert, Agile Programming, and Resources

Then, we moved into the discussions of delivery schedules, bugs, and “what’s a ready product”:

Dilbert About Software Delivery Schedules

Dilbert About Bug Fixing

Finally, we talked about functional requirements and requirement specifications: 

Dilbert About Requirements Specification

 

Dilbert on Getting There Quickly

Have a great weekend!

—
Jussi / Ekahau

Webinar Tomorrow: Using Android Phones & Tablets and Laptops to Design & Manage Wi-Fi Networks

 > Register here!

I’m hosting a webinar tomorrow about designing and managing Wi-Fi networks with tools running on Android tablets/phones, and Windows laptops.

The webinar is free of charge, and lasts about an hour. The webinar will feature more hands-on examples and live user interface work, and less death-by-Powerpoint.

It’s on at

• 9am Pacific US time = great with your morning coffee
• 12 noon Eastern US time = great for a working lunch
• 6pm Central European time = a great reason to order pizza for dinner

 > Register here!