Wireless: Will this work

[thegrassisgreener]

Hi all,

 

I work in a small school and want wireless throughout. If i was to have 3 WAP arounf the school. Would it work successfully if I was to give them all the same SSID and same WPA encryption - THey are all the same model of WAP???????

 

thanks

[plexer]

If you want users with any laptop to connect to any acces point then they must have the same ssid and wpa key on them.

 

Otherwise you would have to set all 3 of them up on every laptop.

 

Ben

[Southwell]

Also take into consideration what black spots you could have.

[StewartKnight]

you can do that, but make sure that the AP's are on different channels. there are 3 channels that don't overlap, so I'd choose them!

 

The channels are 1, 6 and 11

[Geoff]

How many concurrent devices are you expecting to use the Wifi?

[Koocha]

Hi

 

In Europe you're ok to use 4 channels as the overlap accounts for <1% interference between APs (1, 5, 9, 13). That's if you need to.

 

Source: http://www.webarchive.ja.net/services/publications/factsheets/063-overlapping-channel-problem.pdf

 

We've stayed away from wireless completely in our school. It's fairly big for a primary too.

[plexer]

Thats a good documents, thanks for posting that link.

 

Ben

[strawberry]

Hi

 

In Europe you're ok to use 4 channels as the overlap accounts for <1% interference between APs (1, 5, 9, 13). That's if you need to.

 

Source: http://www.webarchive.ja.net/services/publications/factsheets/063-overlapping-channel-problem.pdf

 

We've stayed away from wireless completely in our school. It's fairly big for a primary too.

 

When i tried this i found that a lot of laptops couldn't see channel 13

[Guest blacksheep]

Although Cisco recommends not using more than 3 adjacent to each other. Have a look on the Cisco site and theres loads of documentation on the subject.

 

For example, http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/wireless/ps430/tsd_products_support_series_home.html

 

I used Aironet WAPs but a lot of the information is just as applicable for any other when doing site surveys, channel allocations etc..

[Michael]

The problem with wireless channels, is in the USA it goes upto 11, but in Europe it goes up to 13 (officially).

 

Problem is, a lot of hardware is manufactured abroad, so stick with 1, 6 and 11 for your three Access Points.

 

The advantage of giving Access Points the same security information, is that users can (in theory) be connected anywhere in school. The laptop automatically works out what channel each Access Point is talking on.

 

You must be very strategic in your Access Points locations (if they're in fixed positions) and the easiest way I have found is to obtain a drawing of the school building itself. It's much easier to work this way.

[contink]

Just wanted to add my thanks to those posting up the article links re: band overlap, etc...

 

That lot has been a real timesaver!

[Guest AustenLowe]

I have a Cisco implementation using the Aironet access points and a 4400 wifi controller, it works really well, users can roam around with no fuss at all, plus it has a nice authentication page where they can authenticate with Active Directory credentials, so non of this wpa/wep lark. Also the controller is a state full firewall so you can blockout various things (in my case dns,dhcp and port 3128 to proxy only). It also looks after the channeling and signal strength, it's even able to block out rouge APs'. But as ever with Cisco it's expensive, very expensive. The controller is license based, a 50 AP controller is £7000, the AP's are anywhere between £150 to £350 so it all adds up. Very good kit non the less.