jmphx
New Around Here
I am looking into upgrading our small office's wireless network and would like to get some feedback from the community.
Here are some details about the office:
- our office is the 2nd floor in a 3 floor building.
- there are a few other AP's near us (other businesses), but it's not too bad
- approx 5000 sq ft
- mostly square, about 67' x 70'
- about 30 employees
- 75% of employees use laptops and wireless (60%/40% mac/windows)
- plenty of iPads, androids, and iphones too
Current problems:
- random "drop outs" suffered throughout the day, especially when the office is crowded.
The previous solution was a Netgear WNDR3700, which would actually freeze up when the network got too busy. This was replaced by an Apple Time Machine (dual-band, simul.). The time machine is better, it doesn't freeze up and require a reboot, but we still have dropouts throughout the day which is a pain. Especially with our reliance on skype (sales calls, conference calls with external contractors, etc).
My current thinking is to augment the existing network with 1 or 2 more Apple Airport Extreme's with same SSID and WPA2 key. I've started a preliminary site survey and have a general idea on where I would place the new AP's, but before I go down this path I'd like to get some feedback from you guys.
Also, I have a few questions:
- What is a good target for "clients-per-AP ratio"? I've read in some of the Cisco documentation that 10-15 per AP is a good target, but with consumer-grade gear I imagine this may be less. I'm thinking 10 (for the apple airports)
- What is a good target for RSSI in all of the 'critical' locations? Again, from some older cisco documentation, it looks like you generally don't get anymore throughput with signal better than about -60 for 802.11g and -70 for 802.11b, but what about 802.11n (2 and 5ghz)? I'm thinking shooting for -50 to -55 would be safest.
Here are some details about the office:
- our office is the 2nd floor in a 3 floor building.
- there are a few other AP's near us (other businesses), but it's not too bad
- approx 5000 sq ft
- mostly square, about 67' x 70'
- about 30 employees
- 75% of employees use laptops and wireless (60%/40% mac/windows)
- plenty of iPads, androids, and iphones too
Current problems:
- random "drop outs" suffered throughout the day, especially when the office is crowded.
The previous solution was a Netgear WNDR3700, which would actually freeze up when the network got too busy. This was replaced by an Apple Time Machine (dual-band, simul.). The time machine is better, it doesn't freeze up and require a reboot, but we still have dropouts throughout the day which is a pain. Especially with our reliance on skype (sales calls, conference calls with external contractors, etc).
My current thinking is to augment the existing network with 1 or 2 more Apple Airport Extreme's with same SSID and WPA2 key. I've started a preliminary site survey and have a general idea on where I would place the new AP's, but before I go down this path I'd like to get some feedback from you guys.
Also, I have a few questions:
- What is a good target for "clients-per-AP ratio"? I've read in some of the Cisco documentation that 10-15 per AP is a good target, but with consumer-grade gear I imagine this may be less. I'm thinking 10 (for the apple airports)
- What is a good target for RSSI in all of the 'critical' locations? Again, from some older cisco documentation, it looks like you generally don't get anymore throughput with signal better than about -60 for 802.11g and -70 for 802.11b, but what about 802.11n (2 and 5ghz)? I'm thinking shooting for -50 to -55 would be safest.