Software

Ask something
Question Locked

Wireless Access point recommendations

0 helpful
3 replies

by old-flyer

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

I have a customer that moved thier office about 9 months ago and due to the age of the building I converted the network over to a wireless network. The network consist of 1 ap, two bridges, one range extender and 10 workstations. All of the wireless hardware is Linksys 54g with WPA/TKIP enabled. Now for about the last 7 to 8 months I have been constantly having connection issues. This office is on the third floor of a building built in the early 1800's and there are two other AP's in the building (one on each floor). The last change I made set the ap to channel 7. This has helped, but, the stability that I am after does not exist at this point. One of the hosts still loses its connection or is very slow. Also note that I have installed a remote 7db gain omni antenna on the AP. Any suggestions or recommendation on a different AP would be greatly appreciated. Sometimes the AP on the second floor indicates equal signal quality to the one I want to connect.

I don't have the funding to purchase a spectrum analyzer and I'm not sure what or were the interference lies.

Note: The SSID broadcast is disabled and each of the clients are configured with the SSID of the AP being named as preferred.

3 replies

by jmcaloney

Many older buildings used metal lath in the walls to hold the stucco. A really good rf shield.

by bhalley1

Im not sure that changing the AP would solve the problem. Here are some suggestions to try/verify:

1. SSID Names
Be sure that each of the APs has a unique SSID name. If not then the client may be losing contact with your network.

2. Channel
The only channels that should be used are 1, 6 or 11. The RF technology used by wi-fi allows for a lot of signal power leakage between adjacent channels, and it doesnt drop off sufficiently until you are 5 channels away. So, if the other APs are on channel 6, try 1 or 11.

3. Signal strength
If it is always the same client that is having connection problems, it may be that your wireless signal is weak at that location. Check the signal strength. If it is low, then data errors may be occuring which are causing the AP to resend packets over and over.

4. SSID Conflict
Also, conduct a site survey using the client wireless card software to see how many other APs it can see. You might be surprised at the number, and how it changes during the day. The client could be getting overwhelmed by a number of wireless beacons coming from other APs that it can see.

5. Network Overload
You should also see if there are other events (large file transfers, etc)occuring on the wireless network at the time that the connection is lost.

This discussion is closed to new replies.