Extending wifi access in office building

[dee001]

GM everyone, I am about to set up access points throughout this office building and need a bit of assistance on if I am going about this correctly. The building is all flat and pretty large, I would say this was an old grocery store then turn into an office building with drop ceilings, as of now they have a Verizon modem/ router that the 2.4ghz reaches most of the space, and one repeating access point in the back. My plan is to install hard wired access points or a mesh possibly 4 with hardwired home runs back to the router.

I never had to do this from scratch normally I am fixing an existing layout so my questions do I need to create a map of the building with a layout of my work and access points/ mesh? Also was planning on using my cell phone and wifi analyzer with the existing wifi signals to show me the weak spots then with those weak spots map out a plan to run hardwires and install the access points or mesh devices at that location. Also was thinking of using unifi access point since I have experience with those devices.

 

[Markverhyden]

How big is the building?
What are the interior walls made of?
Where is the VZ modem located within the foot print of the building?
How many users?
How far aware are adjacent buildings?
What are the exterior wall made of?

I never had to do this from scratch normally I am fixing an existing layout so my questions do I need to create a map of the building with a layout of my work and access points/ mesh? Also was planning on using my cell phone and wifi analyzer with the existing wifi signals to show me the weak spots then with those weak spots map out a plan to run hardwires and install the access points or mesh devices at that location. Also was thinking of using unifi access point since I have experience with those devices.

You're talking about a heat map. If it was me, since I'd be disabling the VZ 802.11, I'd just proceed with doing a heat map with a new access point. I use Unifi in my home office so I'd just take that and a laptop to the site. After drawing a rough floor plan I'd pick AP locations based on the geometry of the building. Position the AP, power it up, and then walk around noting signal strengths. Rinse and repeat based on readings.

Ekahau used to have a free heat mapper but that appears to be gone. Solarwinds has one with a free 30 day trial but not sure of the details. There's others out there, including for iOS and Android. Another thing is do look at the spectrum to see which bands are being used. Those are available for all platforms as well. I use inSSIDer for that.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Yeah Ubiquiti Unifi is my "go to" product for networking...both wired and wireless. We've been a big Ubiquiti house since about their first or second year out...way back when their ceiling mount APs were square with a green light.

Wired APs are better than wireless repeating..."meshing". But todays meshing is better than prior generation of meshing....since back in the early days of meshing..wireless uplink communicated on the same radio as the wifi clients. So single radio wireless suffered a huge performance drop when doing wireless uplinks. Dual radios...use one radio for the wireless uplink (backhaul)..and the other radio for the wifi clients. So much less of a performance drop. The BEST setups use 3x radios. 1x dedicated for the backhaul, and...the usual two (2.4 and 5.0) for the wifi clients.

So...leaning how to do site surveys is good to do. Takes a while to learn to approximate where to locate the APs. In many offices and homes ...they're somewhat flexible. In other areas....like schools...it can get very complex due to small rigid rooms, cinder block walls, etc. Requires a more dense setup (more APs installed closer together)...so learning how to adjust transmit power, and stagger channels, is important.

A good place to start when doing a site survey is ...just bring an access point. ..with a POE injector and patch cable. Plug it in a room...don't need internet access, just..measuring its signal here. Now go walk around with your laptop (or..at least..phone)..with a good wifi survey app, and measure signal stregth. Figure out where the signal degrades...like weaker than -60, and now you basically have the edge of its cell that it can cover well. Figure out the next location for the next AP. Plan their overlap...lower TX power as necessary.

The strength of that signal depends on the needs. Adjust as necessary. Just regular web surfing...can get away with -60 or even -65 and have it mostly usable. For heavier web use...youtube videos, etc...you'll want to get a little stronger..in the -50's range. For streaming TVs in HD...even stronger, in the -40's range.

For wireless uplinks...you want to have that distance have a better signal than -60...most towards the -40's range.

Staggering channels is important..esp with 2.4, you have 1, 6, and 11 here in the US.
For 5.0.....most default to 40 wide channels which gives you 4x channels in DFS to stagger. For very dense environments....where you have more than a dozen APs...esp schools, I'll lower the 5.0 radios to do 20 wide channels. Better range, better penetration, only slightly lower speeds.
Also in very dense environments (lots of APs) I'll often disable the 2.4 radio on every other, or every third...AP. 2.4 has much more range...so easier to have too much channel utilization.