Today I had the (dis)pleasure of setting up a wireless network. Although this technology has been around for a while it was my first time setting up an access point. Considering the problems I have had with Bluetooth in the past I was expecting some trouble, sensibly all the hardware was from the same manufacturer, but it was some cheap generic equipment rather than the brand name goods.

   The only problem came from trying to use WEP encryption, which refused to actually authenticate any users, but did insist on reporting that they were all authenticated! Changing to WPA fixed things, although as users keep being disconnected every few hours I suspect that all is still not well. Currently unplugging the access point does the trick.

   The cool feature is the range of the network, using a small high gain directional antenna (which costs as much as the access point) its easily possible to get coverage over the entire warehouse with only minimal thought to antenna placement.

   The two materials causing interference are the double thickness red-brick wall (and probably a concrete floor too) and the metal roof beams which do a good job of cutting the signal directly behind them.

    I have made the following observations, signal strength relates to using a high gain antenna, but effects are similar with a standard aerial:

* A red brick cavity wall (two lines of bricks) will drop signal strength by about 40%.
* A cast iron H-beam roof support approx 12 inches wide will drop signal strength by about 60+% in the shadow area of the beam (i.e. in the path that directly obscures line of sight to the antenna). But signals do appear to bend around the beam once you move 14ft or more back from it.
* MDF shelving, chipboard and Paper books provide negligible signal degradation
* Cast iron and steel building superstructure do not cause signals to reflect around in a way that reduces network performance or signal strength.
* A high gain antenna on an access point provides a 20% improvement in reported signal strength at the client end even when using a regular USB Key style WI-FI adapter and no separate antenna at the client end.
* Getting antenna's above people's heads can help as the human body blocks a small amount of signal.
* USB key WI-FI adapters have a directional antenna, ensure the key is at 90degrees to the access point and not end-on (i.e. pointing at the access point). The same can be said of the bog standard antennas on access points.
* Even with 35% signal strength it was possible to maintain a 11Mbs 802.11g wireless connection. It was very difficult to obtain a faster connection however strong the signal.
* Sustained file copy performance shows how much slower WI-FI is than 100Mbs switched copper Ethernet. But web pages work just fine.

   The application I am putting WI-FI to does not require high data rates as its only looking at simple web pages, for this reason I have been concentrating on signal strength good enough to maintain a link, and not a really high speed connection (favouring availability and stability over all out speed)

   In doing the research for this I encountered a lot of crap about reception and the expensive lengths that can be taken to improve it, I hope my comments help. Remember new access points (even cheap ones) can act as wireless repeaters to extend coverage. This doesn't require any network wiring to the repeaters so if you have signal problems why not get another cheap access point to fill in the blanks. All this requires is that the two access points can get good signal to each other. I would not expect to get high speeds out of this approach, but I would expect to get greatly improved coverage.

   I personally found the radio waves aspect of this nice and easy, the problem came with the security options. Any form of encryption was a pain in the arse and the setup software for the router was user-unfriendly. I think this is where the majority of initial setup gripes come from and it is hardly surprising there are so many unsecured wireless access points. MAC address filtering did work from the get-go which was a good start at securing the installation.

   I was closer than usual to having a pain free first time with new technology. This is not a glowing endorsement... but when it comes to IT its about as positive as you can get! If there is ever a next time experience will make it pain free.

   I need to go back and tweak the access point some time in the future, to make things a bit better.