I am the Dir. of Information Systems at a small college. The college moved to a new building under new ownership in May. This meant a change in management, 3rd party support, public IP?s, and the LAN?s physical layer in particular. I?m seeking advice on wireless networking on a large scale.
The new building has 4 floors. The main wiring closet is on the first floor, and has 1.5m T1 Internet connection through a Netopia router, with fiber running vertically to Intel Express 510T switches on the other floors. The 2nd floor is cabled with Cat5. The 3rd and 4th floors are dormitories with switches and patch panels fed by fiber, but very little Cat5 to the dorm rooms.
To avoid the costs of cabling the dorm rooms, D-Link DWL-900AP+ wireless access points and repeaters were installed. This decision was made before I came on board, and was proposed by 3rd party support with which I have basic philosophical differences, essentially over Novell vs. Windows 2003 server, Cisco vs. Netopia, Netgear etc. I?m in Novell?s and Cisco?s corner.
My opinion is that wireless networking is fine for small businesses but not for larger LANs. This building is built like a fortress with thick concrete walls and ceilings, and old fluorescent lighting fixtures with magnetic ballisters. The wireless works in some places some of time, but needs constant attention as well as end users needing help with configuring their wireless network adapters. I?ve done some research into wireless switches, and long-range antennas for the D-link access points, but I am hesitant to recommend expenditures on better equipment or improvements to what we already have, because I?m doubtful about wireless in this building.
