During a wireless network assessment, we complete an active site survey. We do this by mimicking the placement of a wireless access point and taking active readings in various physical spots to gauge coverage. During the active survey, we will enter each and every room (as permitted), close the door and take wireless readings in the far corners of the room to replicate worse case scenarios. This will get us as close to 'real life' as possible. As you might imagine this is a very labor intensive and time consuming process; we may need to enter a room on two or more occasions to record coverage overlap. It's not uncommon for our engineers to walk 10 or more miles during a typical site survey.

The process of an active site survey is really the start of the wireless assessment and is important, because it will show where we have and don't have wireless coverage. We provide this coverage to you in a detailed site survey report with graphical heat map renderings at the conclusion of the assessment. Once the entire active site survey is complete, ScanOnline will merge all the collected data and interpret its results.

Another equally important factor is a spectrum analysis. You can have a perfectly designed WLAN to accommodate high-data rates, VoIP, and a high user ratio per access point. However, once interference is introduced to an 80211 wireless transmission, you will see a negative hit with high retry rates by your clients and access points. In most cases, this will bring your wireless performance down and you might even lose network connectivity. As part of our network assessment, ScanOnline conducts a spectrum analysis. This will allow us visibility of 802.11 and non 802.11 devices present in the 2.4 ISM and 5 UNII bands. As part of our wireless network report, you will have all visibility of our findings and recommendations.

ScanOnline will also conduct a wireless analysis. We do this by deploying a wireless analyzer. This analyzer will take readings from all 802.11 wireless devices and give us a clear picture of the 802.11 landscape. We will be able to see transmissions from a client device to an access point and access point to client.
Neighboring wireless networks (WLAN)s. This is important when deploying and troubleshooting your WLAN. This will also allow us visibility to co-channel and same channel interference, noise, rogue access points, packet level transmission, security and performance concerns.

We encourage transfer of knowledge to our customers, who are interested in learning wireless. When data moves from 802.3 to 802.11, it requires different tools and techniques. By covering subjects such as CTS/RTS, CSMA/CA, hidden node, near far and other examples, we will be able to educate your staff with good sound basic wireless troubleshooting. We will not hide the secrets, but rather share what it takes to make wireless work. The more you know, the more successful your wireless network implementation.

ScanOnline is a Cisco Premier Partner and we specialize in WLAN integration and deployments. ScanOnline also holds the Cisco Wireless Local Area Network Specialist Certification. Our engineers have obtained various levels of certifications from Cisco as well as other vendors. We provide services from consulting, VoIP, troubleshooting, survey, spectrum analysis, wireless analysis, design, integration, and training.

“ScanOnline a Partner of ours in the Southeast provides turnkey Solutions for all of our Enterprise technology. Motorola, as a Fortune 100 manufacturer of enterprise class data collection systems, we rely heavily on our Partners to execute on mission critical projects…whether its RFID, Wireless, WIPS, Scanning or Rugged Mobile Computing, you can count on success with ScanOnline!”