Interesting WLAN Conundrum

[barryfowles]

A customer has a large open room with dimensions of 65 metres by 45 metres. They want to allow wireless access to the Internet for up to 500 users using b/g only. The pipe to the internet will be 34Mbps. Unfortunately I don't know whether users will just be web browsing or pulling down files. If I put in 3 APs on non-overlapping channels they will provide the coverage but the number of users per AP will be huge. Putting in more APs will obviously reduce the number of users per AP but will mean that co-channel interference will be a problem. Does anyone know if there is an optimum number of APs to use?

[scottmac]

The general scheme would be to increase the number of APs, reduce the power at each AP (as necessary per the site survey) and use more zone-specific (sector / patch) antennas.

There's no way to accurately figure out how many APs you'll need without a site survey, and an understanding of what the traffic flows will look like (web or downloads are vastly different requirements).

If you don't have this kind of information (yet), you're driving blind.

Good Luck

Scott