Wifi access point/router for business

It might be that your hardware is fine.

The rules for channel allocation are a little complicated, but mostly work if the APs are not too close. (As in home use.) If they are close together, then, as I understand it, you need to try to allocate the channels such that they aren't too close together.

It also depends on the material used for the walls. The signals go through the thin material used in many home walls much easier than in concrete used in many larger buildings.

You might have someone who understands the system better, and even has tools for measuring signal strength, look at the system.

Otherwise, if you really have 120+ people all doing net access in a small space, and they don't move around very often, a wired net might be a better choice.

-- glen

We have all AP's on the same channels, so that is a problem? They all share the same SSID. Some places there are two AP's on the same spot to cover many users, these should have their channels for from each other?

That differs from building to building.

Might be smart. I would love to have some tools for this myself, but I haven't found any.

They are pretty spread out. The students are in their classroms, in their own rooms (they live at the school), and many other places, like the TV-room and big livingrooms.

(I wrote)

If they are close enough that one user could see more than one access point, I believe they should have different channels, maybe four or five channel units apart. There is a book called "Wi-Foo" that describes much of this, but I don't have one right now.

I believe having the SSID the same is fine, but I would choose different ones. If you get a report of someone having problems connecting it is nice to know which one they were trying to connect to.

-- glen

I'll look into that book.

I have the same SSID and channel because you can then walk from classroom to classroom and not loose your connection. Maybe that just require same SSID and not same channel? If so I'll change the channels.

But what model would you recommend when we buy new ones? We are about to make another building wifi so we are looking to invest some money in AP's now.

"Simen S. Øya" wrote in part:

There are ways to make roaming work with IRAP and static IP or centrally managed DHCP and sufficiently advanced network-path discovery routers. AFAIK, you always choose different 802.11b/g non-overlapping channels.

But unless you do it right, I expect lots of trouble.

-- Robert

The WRT54G has always been my favorite, and they are usually reasonably priced, too.

If you use access points instead of routers, you can make them all on the same IP subnet. 120 hosts isn't so many for a fast ethernet network. Some OS might close the connections when switching over, though, even if the IP address was still the same.

It seems like reliable access is more important than the ability to walk from one room to another while staying connected. With concrete walls and no windows in the rooms it might almost work.

-- glen

Look for WiSpy on thinkgeek.

M4

x-posted to wireless -

this should really continue over in the Wireless group - alt.internet.wireless

what do you mean - they work rather poorly ? is the wifi experience bad because..... slow speed, coverage, disconnects, roaming, what ?

again - what is the perceived problem ? which may not have anything to do with the AP hardware

ok - again - what are the problems ? errors, transfer rate, speeds, etc ? Does the Procurve show any Ethernet errors when viewing the admin screen ?

well - you'll probably get lots of wifi feedback from this group, but without specific targets of what you have as current "problems", it's hard to address what needs to be fixed..

What is the general overview of your situation - what does everyone access ? - Internet vs local school servers vs off campus servers ? Types of traffic - basic web, email, etc - vs video streams, classroom learning, or VoIP ? WAN connections ? and inter-building connections ? Speed of local Ethernet hardware ?