Webinar Recording & Slides – 5 Effective Ways to Improve Wi-Fi

Last week, we hosted two webinars, called “5 Effective Ways to Improve Your Wi-Fi”.

A big thank you for the 500 participants, who remained on the line all the way to the end, although both times we ran 30 minutes overtime with the Q&A.  

SLIDES:
http://www.ekahau.com/misc/Webinar-Ekahau-5-Ways-to-Improve-WiFi-Feat-Trent.pdf

RECORDING (European webinar):
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/645782590

Cheers,
Jussi Kiviniemi / Ekahau

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.

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

Latest in RTLS and Wi-Fi tools @ IP Expo / London Wednesday and Thursday this week!

Ekahau is exhibiting at IP Expo in London Wed and Thu this week.

If you’re curious about what’s the latest in indoor location tracking and Wi-Fi life cycle management tools, come see us!

Find us at stand B47.

The event is held at Earls Court 2.

– IP Expo Webpage http://www.ipexpo.co.uk/

Video: Indoor Navigation Done Right

The problem with most mobile phone navigation apps is they just don’t work indoors. Just try to find your way through a huge hotel or a shopping mall.

To address this problem, our partner GAB has made a very nice indoor navigation app. It accurately guides you through to your destination in real-time, even including Google Street View type assistance in selected locations.

On a technical level, the GAB app combines indoor navigation intelligence with real-time location information from Ekahau Real-Time Location System. The location accuracy in the Ekahau RTLS is very high, typically few feet (a couple of meters) indoors. The position is updated every few seconds.

Check out the video below:

—
Jussi Kiviniemi / Ekahau

The Tablet I Didn’t Fall In Love With

We have had the pleasure to test different kinds of tablets to see how they work in general, and especially with Ekahau Mobile Survey.

The tablet market is exciting. Today, we have the Xooms, the Galaxy Tabs, and the iPads. Great devices. Tons more to come, like the HTC Flyer, and the Asus Eee Pad Transformer.

Some tablets, however, are useless enough to make me furious. You could call them textbook examples of bad product management. They end up in the Ekahau Wall of Shame.

The tablet that didn't exactly exceed my expectations

Cheers,
Jussi

Webinar This Thursday: Easier Wi-Fi Troubleshooting and Monitoring

I’m hosting a webinar this coming Thursday about how to make life a little easier for those of us who have to troubleshoot, analyze and monitor Wi-Fi networks.

It’s no secret I’ll be demonstrating Ekahau Mobile Survey, our brand-new Android phone/tablet based Wi-Fi tool there.

If you have time, register now and join in on Thursday at 10am pacific, 1pm eastern, early evening in Europe

I’ll also record the webinar (given we get no tech difficulties with the webinar system….)

—
Jussi

Videos: Ekahau Mobile Survey – Better Wi-Fi with Android

How does Ekahau Mobile Survey, the yesterday-announced Wi-Fi analysis tool for Android phones and tablets work?

Please find  few links to short videos covering much of the  features. For some reason, WordPress did not work when I tried to embed these particular videos directly to the post (other videos would work). Sorry for the inconvenience of not being able to play the videos directly on this page…

Overview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP0_CCewwb0

Test tab: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8umz5Cj4O9A

Map: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7h1w2xdRr0

APs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sddIpx6Tc_s

Background Monitoring: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s44qPgfjOs

Logging: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx1cysOtl2I

Cheers,
Jussi

Video: Ekahau Site Survey in 1:58 Minutes

What does Ekahau Site Survey actually do, in short?

A big thanks to Toni for the 3D animations.