Hi All,

I'm trying to pin down the best practice for provisioning a wireless network. I'm going to be using AP800 access points and the scenario is a building with several rooms spread over an area too big for one access point to adequately service. User's have laptops and need to be able to move between rooms without losing their connection.

Now I've read a lot of stuff about wireless distribution and repeater mode but I don't think that's what I'm after. Each room has a LAN connection so I'm thinking that each access point should be LAN connected back to the server - but what's the best practice in terms of SSID and Channel - should all the access points have the same SSID, Channel and WPA settings, which I guess would allow seamless roaming or can this cause interference - I've had lots of advice from various 'experts' but would really value advice from anyone that's implemented a similar system or has knowledge of how it should be done.

Many thanks in advance,

Colin.

I have three wireless APs, all on wireless n in the same building. To get best performance and seamless roaming you need to have the same security settings on all three. Use the same SSID but you must use 3 different channels, ideally 1, 7 and 13 for n with 40Mhz bandwidth. Thats because with 40 Mhz you are actually using several channels centered on the nominal one. There is a good WIKI article on it. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels

Howard,

Thanks very much for taking the time to reply and for the useful article. I had a memory about using different channels so that confirms it.

Most of our client laptops will be using XP, with multiple access points do you think it will load balance? So for example in one room there might be 16 laptops - if I put 3 APs in there configured as you suggest I wonder how well the load would be spread - any experience of that?

Thanks again,

Colin.

I would have thought 1 AP would be sufficeint for 16 laptops as long as its not a an office the size of a tennis court! Of course it depends on what they are all doing, if they are constantly moving large files around at the same time then it might be different. Where there is more than one AP available on the same SSID then the laptop will normally connect to the one with the strongest signal. I would initally stick to just one AP per main room and then servey the signal in adjacent rooms to see if you may need another AP. The thing with WiFI is it depends very much on the materials of construction of the builing, lots of reinforced concrete or foil backed plasterboard will rapidly attenuate the signal.