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If you are anything like I was, after reading this book and others like it, you will be embarrassed of your previous designs lol!

Wow! I can't thank you guys enough for all the info.

Sean Rynearson, I'm glad I still don't have to sell it! Since I'm about to graduate from college, I was just discussing with a professor the best approaches to a paperwork I'm doing about WLAN design. I work as a network admin, and they trust me to do whatever it takes to keep the network as functional and secure as possible on all sites. This means I get to do as much site surveys and pen tests as I want, as long as the rest of the network still works while I'm doing it. I just wish we had more gear lol.

Keith Parsons, I remember when I found out about wlanpros.com and read all your whitepapers. It was the first time I heard about post-deployment surveys, and it made a whole lot of sense. Until today, I always go to your site whenever I'm in doubt. Thanks for checking in and for the great advises.

From all the info you all have provided, I think I'll focus my paperwork more in the "harder" problems like co-channel interference, client-AP power mismatch, traffic engineering and so on. I'll mention the easier problems like coverage and AP collocation, and how they can be tackled with predictive and passive surveys, but will put emphasis on the importance of a verification survey and what are the things you can change to fine tune your network. Thank you all!

Lol got caught up in my replyand didn't see you other responses, Sean. I already bought the kindle version of the CWDP guide, I'll try to start reading it ASAP. I wanted to start with the CWAP, but since I'm having so much trouble with site surveys I guess I'll go with the CWDP first.

Luis I find it interesting your professors comments regarding site surveys as well as other board members. First you have to look at this apples to apples; meaning that your comparison of predictive tools from the cellular world to the WLAN is flawed. Cellular RF propagation/ray trace analysis is used only for outdoor modeling, and is mainly concerned with FSPL and geography; so to accurately compare the two requires a situation that is similar; say outdoor campus coverage; and I don?t know about you but at this point I can calculate FSPL in my head; just need to figure out where the AP?s are going based on power, LAN access, or tower heights. In the WLAN world outdoor ?site certs? are usually just a formality, as is the survey. To answer your question about outdoor WLAN predictive tools, AirMagnet/Ekahau/Site Scanner can give you 99.9% accurate results for outdoor WLAN coverage; but why use them can?t you FSPL/SoM in your head, or at least fake it?

Then he said "what if a building is in construction, and they want to know where to put AP's power and network support?"
Trick question as this is really a LAN guys job but ok I?ll bite, cat6 100M, just make sure that no part of the building is beyond 100M; typically cabling guys only do 90?s so that 100M can disappear really quick.

Sorry guys you can?t compare outdoor to indoor; let alone cell to WLAN.

@@ron when there is a tool that correctly simulates an omni mounted directly on a steel wall then I?ll listen; until then Motorola/Fluke/Ekahau get you act together and give me real ?ray trace analysis? in your modeling!!! Guys I spent 10 years on a submarine watching an HP9020 spent 36 hours running ?ray trace analysis? at my threat frequencies, this is the 21st century, not the 17th!!!

Lol did you read the first post then stop???