In a typical IT organization, it is the Help Desk’s job to take incoming user support calls and determine whether the problem is an individual client/device issue or a broader network issue that might affect multiple users. The Help Desk itself is usually responsible for handling the individual user problems, while escalating broader network issues to the Network Engineering or Network Operations team. With wireless networks, most user complaints boil down to one of two observable problems:
l The wireless network is slow.
l I cannot connect to the wireless network.
Of course, there are literally hundreds of different potential root causes for either of these two symptoms. Many, if not most, of these problems are related to the client device settings or authentication issues, which should be handled by the Help Desk. Yet, when the Help Desk does not have the tools and diagnostic capabilities to perform this ‘triage,’ most issues are instead escalated directly to Network Engineering. The result is not pretty: users are unhappy because their problems are not resolved quickly; the Help Desk staff becomes frustrated because they cannot do their jobs; and Network Engineers suffer because they are swamped with wireless related calls.