Wireless LAN design

Wireless LAN design is far from easy, especially due to the many issues that you could run into when deploying it.

Nowadays, Wi-Fi is really easy to access and people expect to be connected and interconnected to each other, without any limits. Enterprises’ demands for powerful WLANs are skyrocketing because of new trends like Intenet of Things, BYOD, BYON, etc. and WLAN experts now face problems with capacity and network security. Designing a WLAN is resulting in more difficulty than ever before.

The reliability of the WLAN depends on the coverage and the capacity of the WLAN. In order to meet an enterprise’s wireless needs in terms of coverage and capacity, its WLAN must be built according to the size of the area to cover, the expected number of concurrent users, the kind of devices that will be connected to the network, and the usage of the network (video streaming, emails, etc.).

In addition to this, to ensure good connectivity to users, it is important to consider the quantity of bandwidth necessary – bandwidth quantity is key for a performant WLAN, particularly in high-density Wi-Fi deployments.

Depending on where your WLAN will be deployed, you must choose the type of access point according to the type of environment. To design a successful WLAN, it is important to consider factors such as the model, type (indoor or outdoor), type of antennas (directional, omnidirectional…), supported Wi-Fi standards and number of access points.

According to the environment in which you deploy your Wi-Fi network, you might also need to set particular parameters. For instance, when providing a Wi-Fi connection to educational institutes, you may need to set up parameters such as content filtering to restrict access to some websites. When providing Wi-Fi connection to a company, you may need to implement BYOD policies, or to limit the time session to surf the web; instead, when deploying Wi-Fi at hotels, you may need to provide voucher codes for free or paid access to your network.