Gone are the days of cumbersome cabling. With wireless networks, organisations can unlock a powerful world of benefits for their tech – increased flexibility, simpler installation, unparalleled scalability, and, in many scenarios, significantly reduced costs. But don’t get carried away. More than a tick-box implementation, these networks require detailed planning to nail the design first time. Whether you’re optimising, expanding, or building infrastructure from scratch, surveys offer a level of attention to detail you simply can’t afford to miss.
Here, we explore the different types of wireless site surveys, exactly what each exercise uncovers, and which approach will add the most value to your deployment.
Why do businesses need wireless?
Every company – regardless of its size – needs a local area network (LAN). It’s how devices on site connect to the internet and communicate with each other. In a standard office, we’re talking about things like laptops, smartphones, and servers. Meanwhile, in a setting such as a hospital, an endless range of devices would be added to that list – including patient monitoring machines, medical imaging machines, medication dispensing systems, bedside computers, and mobile tracking devices, to name a few.
As digital transformation efforts continue, industry standards change, and more Internet of Things (IoT) devices make their way into the tech stack, traditional wired networks simply can’t keep up. Not only do they chain teams to physical workstations, making productivity and teamwork a headache, but they’re also a drain on time, money, and resources – time-consuming to install, difficult to scale, and expensive to operate and maintain. Wireless local area networks (WLANs) flip all these challenges on their head.
There’s just one thing: this isn’t an overnight exercise that reaps results with the flick of a switch. To unlock the true potential of a wireless network, and the gamechanging technologies that operate within it, the initial deployment strategy has to be executed to the nth degree. So precise, it doesn’t bite you with added costs, configurations, and complexities down the line.
What is a wireless survey?
A straight swap of hardware won’t always provide a business with the services it needs to meet modern technology demands. Even if it does, the basic physics behind wireless technology still requires careful manipulation.
By nature, this infrastructure is incredibly adaptive to its environment, able to adjust its transition parameters based on changing conditions like signal strength, interference levels, and distance, to maintain high-quality communication. But if there’s a lead-lined wall that’s 10 inches thick and filled with concrete, it will be virtually impossible for the signal to penetrate through. And while throwing additional access points around might seem like a good idea to boost connections, this can actually have the opposite effect. It’s a very careful balance.
This is why a wireless LAN survey (or a radio frequency (RF) survey) is so important. Beyond mere signal checks, it dives deep into your environment, understanding how radio frequencies behave within your space. From dead zones and overlapping coverage to power considerations, wired requirements, and potential interferences – including Bluetooth, fluorescent lights, vending machines, microwave ovens, adjacent channels, hazardous areas, and even unauthorised devices risking network security – it produces a heat map with key findings. Since voice traffic is more susceptible to disruption when it comes to cell overlap, radio frequency noise, and packet delay, this heat map is especially valuable when planning voice application deployments.
With this foresight, you can be confident your wireless network runs at peak performance – wherever or whenever coverage is needed – before deploying or reconfiguring a single component. This proactive approach helps you avoid costly oversights, misjudged estimates, and added complexities that hold your progress back.
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