Help with a ~30 AP network

[jrronimo]

Hello,

I've been tasked with improving wifi in our really old building. This building is spread across one 10-floor tower and three sections of the building built in roughly 20 year increments. We've been using off-the-shelf APs for some time now, such as EnGenius EAP300s/350s and HP V-M200s, but there are other brand APs in the building. We're noticing a lot of clients who don't seem to to be connecting to the strongest access point or, if they do, they seem to have slow or no internet access. Sometimes a client will connect and show "four bars", but have very little throughput.

This network needs to support several hundred clients over the course of a day (mainly people's personal phones/tablets/etc., but some work laptops) and ideally we want all of the SSIDs to be named the same -- we are in part a public institution and want to provide open wireless access, but we also filter clients we trust onto separate networks using our DHCP server by MAC address. I've done my best to separate the APs into non-overlapping channels. I've experimented with Isolation, Station Separation and every setting I can find in the EnGenius APs, but I cannot for the life of me make this network work well and it is very frustrating, both for me as an IT person and my clients as people who want wifi, haha.

I realize this is a highly unorthodox setup, but it's the one we've got. We especially notice problems with OS X machines staying connected to our network.

Do we need some sort of controller? Or maybe it's time for me to take some sort of wireless networking class? I'll do whatever it takes to get this set up right, I just don't know where to look at the moment. I just can't seem to find much information online about large wifi deployments in a situation like this...

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you so much.

 

[stevech]

Hello,

I've been tasked with improving wifi in our really old building. This building is spread across one 10-floor tower and three sections of the building built in roughly 20 year increments. We've been using off-the-shelf APs for some time now, such as EnGenius EAP300s/350s and HP V-M200s, but there are other brand APs in the building. We're noticing a lot of clients who don't seem to to be connecting to the strongest access point or, if they do, they seem to have slow or no internet access. Sometimes a client will connect and show "four bars", but have very little throughput.

This network needs to support several hundred clients over the course of a day (mainly people's personal phones/tablets/etc., but some work laptops) and ideally we want all of the SSIDs to be named the same -- we are in part a public institution and want to provide open wireless access, but we also filter clients we trust onto separate networks using our DHCP server by MAC address. I've done my best to separate the APs into non-overlapping channels. I've experimented with Isolation, Station Separation and every setting I can find in the EnGenius APs, but I cannot for the life of me make this network work well and it is very frustrating, both for me as an IT person and my clients as people who want wifi, haha.

I realize this is a highly unorthodox setup, but it's the one we've got. We especially notice problems with OS X machines staying connected to our network.

Do we need some sort of controller? Or maybe it's time for me to take some sort of wireless networking class? I'll do whatever it takes to get this set up right, I just don't know where to look at the moment. I just can't seem to find much information online about large wifi deployments in a situation like this...

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you so much.

That's at a size that needs a pro to design it.
Here, the opinions you get are worth what you pay

 

[thiggins]

Yes, that is a candidate for a centrally managed setup. Fortunately, there are more affordable systems out now. But hire a firm that has experience designing and setting up wireless networks like yours. First thing they should do is a site survey.

 

[jrronimo]

Thanks for the insight.

I guess I was wondering in part, how does one become more of a wireless professional? Are there resources/classes that one takes? Does one try to work for one of these companies to learn it? I'm not opposed to hiring someone (if I can get funding), but I also want to *learn* how to do this, for my own edification.

What sort of centrally managed setups are preferred around here? I've had one recommendation for Ubiquiti's Unifi setup, which I'll be investigating.

 

[thiggins]

I guess I was wondering in part, how does one become more of a wireless professional?

Here's a helpful blog post.

 

[chadster766]

Thanks for the insight.

I guess I was wondering in part, how does one become more of a wireless professional? Are there resources/classes that one takes? Does one try to work for one of these companies to learn it? I'm not opposed to hiring someone (if I can get funding), but I also want to *learn* how to do this, for my own edification.

What sort of centrally managed setups are preferred around here? I've had one recommendation for Ubiquiti's Unifi setup, which I'll be investigating.

It sounds to me like you have had a good learning experience with this network and explored all it's options.

Now all you really have to do is start replacing the AP's that aren't on par with the existing professional equipment (EAP300). Set all AP's to the same SSID.

What you need to concentrate on is the infrastructure of your network that feeds the AP's. A residential router is not going to cut it. You need to move into the enterprise class router like the Cisco 1921. The only reason I recommend this router is that it's the one I have most experience with. There's many enterprise router makes that are great.

Any Cat5e\Cat6 cable runs over 270ft must have a network switch in the middle some where or use Fiber to Ethernet converters and run Fiber.

Main switches should be on par with Cisco SG500.

Your internet connections will need to total minimum (up\down) 5\5 MBits/s and the more you can get the better. Careful some ADSL have a very low upload speed which will be a big problem.

Consider implementing VLAN's for network segmentation.

 

[htismaqe]

If you can afford it (or better, your employer will pay for it) go take some vendor-specific training.

Look for training from companies like Aerohive, Meraki, and Cradlepoint - not only will you get to learn about wireless network, you'll also get to learn about functional uses for your wireless network, software, and analytics.

A lot those companies even give you devices when you take their training.

 

[stevech]

Controller based enterprise WiFi... leaders are Cisco and Aruba.
There are no standards for the back side of controller based WiFi so each vendor wants you to pay them for tutoring and a certificate for their products.

At 20 APs, depending on the building, you're on the borderline of whether or not a controller is needed. Number one issue is what security approach is needed (are you in finance, medical, etc), how does it mate with existing AAA servers for remote access, etc.

This really is the wrong forum to be in for this solution.

 

[jrronimo]

Thank you everyone! There's a lot of great info here and it definitely gives me some paths to investigate.

This really is the wrong forum to be in for this solution.

My apologies! Are there better or more recommended ones?

 

[chadster766]

There's a lot of good AP placement information in the below link:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/solutions/Enterprise/Mobility/WiFiLBS-DG/wifich5.html

 

[sfx2000]

If your IT backbone is Cisco, then integrating will be easier with Cisco for controllers/ap's...

If not heavily invested into Cisco on the back-end - Aruba, Meru, Ruckus, Xirrus - these guys are enterprise/carrier level - Juniper is also a good solution...

For a project of this scale - really need a professional to plan and build it out. Once built out, the training courses that are mentioned earlier in the thread will be very useful to maintain it over the longer term.

One item that wasn't mentioned - there are certifications and training for Wireless Networking specifically - check out http://www.cwnp.com/

sfx

 

[stevech]

Thank you everyone! There's a lot of great info here and it definitely gives me some paths to investigate.




My apologies! Are there better or more recommended ones?

No, not out here in the Internet jabber world.

Best to hire a proper pro. Hard to find, I know. Word of mouth, local IEEE chapter, etc.

at 20-30 APs, and need for security, don't make it a DIY experiment.

 

[thiggins]

I guess I was wondering in part, how does one become more of a wireless professional? Are there resources/classes that one takes? Does one try to work for one of these companies to learn it? I'm not opposed to hiring someone (if I can get funding), but I also want to *learn* how to do this, for my own edification.

SFX started this thread that has some good reference links.

 

[fistv]

With those kind of numbers of users and AP's, and I'm assuming wired in there somewhere as well, you need a real Router to start. Do you have 10 floors or one floor spread out in a 10 story building, that means fiber cable in the elevator shafts to closets on each floor. I'd want POE switches to power the WAPs. I've only used a controller in our isolated humidor wireless network which is essentially a big 60,000 sq/ft Faraday cage, Motorola I have 6 cisco caps in there to cover the whole thing, the steel shelving blocks a lot of signal and that is with the cisco external night stick sized antennas mounted on the ceiling I beams three stories up, used with hand held PC/scanners. All my others are SAP [Stand Alone Points] vs CAP [Controller Access Point]. On commercial grade wap like the Cisco 1600E they will handle 50 users per, that is the highest I've seen on mine with no complaints they have even higher models that will handle more and cost more.
I now have Cisco 891W's and Cisco 1600E saps. In talking to a cisco rep when I was planning this out he said plan 30-40 users per AP max. In my case the 891W's are the dhcp servers, two seperate networks one open, other secure from two different 80meg cable modems. Neither of these are connected to the core network in anyway, the core network has no wireless. Like you I had to go from 0-100 in a short time and not waste any money or resources.