topic Re: site survey tool in Wireless

site survey tool

paulnigel — Sun, 04 Jul 2021 20:09:39 GMT

Hi forum,

Is there a free tool I can use to survey the site that we are going to install wireless network?

can "firewall" - concrete wall 1 feet thick blocking the RF signal?

thanks much,

paul

Re: site survey tool

ethiel — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 04:50:05 GMT

I do not know of any free site survey tools for predictive surveys. If you have a few APs to use, you can do a physical survey with some manual work. It would involve starting in one corner and placing APs. Then you see how far coverage reaches with your required RSSI. If you have a cisco card they have a site survey tool to help with this. Then you move the APs to the next possible spot and make sure you have enough overlap in your cells.

If you decide that this is a bit more than you bargained for, I highly suggest looking at prices for trained site surveyers, because it will cost more putting APs in the wrong place and re-doing it than a good site survey should cost.

If you want to look at predictive tools, I suggect looking at Ekahau and Airmagnet. They each have products to do predictive.

As for the firewall, I know cinder blocks that thick will drastically impact signal, but I have not seen them fully block it. Buildings with that as the internal construction type tend to require many more APs than stick construction.

Re: site survey tool

robert.wright — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 12:49:08 GMT

If you decide to do the site survey, consider looking at this book..

802.11 Wireless Network Site Surveying and Installation

by Bruce E. Alexander

Publisher: Cisco Press

Pub Date: November 09, 2004

Print ISBN-10: 1-58705-164-8

Print ISBN-13: 978-1-58705-164-7

Great book.

Re: site survey tool

paulnigel — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 00:06:05 GMT

Hi all,

Thanks for all the replies.

We will probably engage datacraft to do the site survey for us. they are suggesting us to get controllers and WCS, is WCS a must have?

kind regards,

paul

Re: site survey tool

ethiel — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 00:19:04 GMT

IMO, WCS is most useful when you have multiple controllers, or when you are doing location tracking. I am not as happy currently with the reporting, but the next version will improve that. I think if cost is an issue, you can hold off with 1 controller. once you get more you can always add wcs.

-Eric

Re: site survey tool

paulnigel — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 04:53:02 GMT

Thanks Eric.

Re: site survey tool

brhedlun — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 01:54:51 GMT

WCS is not required but will certainly make your life much easier. Things such as RF heatmaps, the Planning Tool, config backups, controller templates, rogue detection, alerting, and much more make it worth its weight in gold.

WCS is needed if you wish to use location based services such as RF fingerprinting for precise location of rogue access points, clients, and RFID tags.

Brad

Re: site survey tool

paulnigel — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 02:30:11 GMT

Thank you Brad.

We will be getting controllers for our sites located at different part of the world, may be in future we will get one copy of the WCS to place it at a central site.

Thanks much,

paul

Re: site survey tool

ethiel — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 03:38:49 GMT

Paul:

Just to clarify, with multiple controllers you will definitely find WCS useful. My point was that with only one controller it may not be as worthwhile, but with multiple controllers tasks like code upgrades or even small changes can take a lot of time. I do not sell multi-controller solutions to customers without WCS. As an engineer I am not motivated by a bigger sale, but rather I have tried managing multiple controllers individually and it is not fun. I have had no regrets yet from anyone who has purchased it.

I just wanted to clarify my stance since I did not know you were looking at multiple controllers. If you haven't purchased yet, I definitely encourage you to reconsider WCS since I now know you are planning for multiple controllers.

-Eric

*Please rate any posts you find helpful*

site survey tool

acmaran22 — Wed, 02 Oct 2013 06:42:24 GMT

Hi forum,

Is any one having site survey manual for setup new cisco unified communication service for new site.

kindly advice me.

Cheers,

Selva

site survey tool

acmaran22 — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 08:15:40 GMT

Sorruy for late response...Thanks for the information.

site survey tool

acmaran22 — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 08:17:52 GMT

Sure. Noted with Thanks

site survey tool

acmaran22 — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 08:18:44 GMT

Thanks for the information.

site survey tool

Leo Laohoo — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 08:19:24 GMT

Is any one having site survey manual for setup new cisco unified communication service for new site

It's best if you get someone to do a wireless site survey and you hang around and learn how it's done.

site survey tool

kaaftab — Thu, 09 Jan 2014 10:11:16 GMT

Following the few for the free site survay tools

NetSurveyor (good tool)

Air Magnet

Xirrus WiFi Inspect

Heatmapper from Ekahau

http://www.metageek.net/docs/wireless-networking-tools/

comparision for some site survay applications

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wireless_site_survey_applications