What Jobs Need to Be Done and What Information Needs to Be Collected During Site Survey?
A site survey involves the following tasks:
- Determine the coverage objects and requirements.
- Obtain the layout of the areas to be covered from the customer.
- Learn about the network topologies in the areas.
- Obtain contact information of customer's onsite technical personnel.
- Identify device installation positions and power supply mode (completed by the asset management personnel of the property management).
- Determine the positions to install APs, power cables, and network cables with the asset management personnel. Check whether Internet access resources are available.
- Determine whether a distributed antenna system (DAS) is required according to the coverage objectives. If a DAS is available, obtain the DAS design drawings from the customer. If not, ask the carrier whether a DAS is required. If a new DAS needs to be established, determine the positions of antennas with the asset owners.
- Check the construction materials and calculate signal loss.
- Check for interference sources.
Collect the following information during a site survey:
- Layout of the coverage areas
Mark the cabling routes and device installation positions on the layout drawings.
- Building arrangement and structure in the coverage areas
Calculate signal coverage distance of APs based on building arrangement and structure.
- Number of users and required bandwidth
Calculate the network capacity based on the number of users and bandwidth required.
- Device installation positions
- Topology and bandwidth resources of the wired network
- Whether there are sufficient optical fibers and wired network resources to transmit WLAN data
- Signal losses caused by walls, doors, windows, and other construction materials
- Locations and signal strengths of interference sources
- Requirements of users
