Wireless Access

Hi Folks,

I haven't had much experience with how to best handle this and I was hoping to tap into someone's own experience in this?  I'm scratching my head with either going with an Omni Direction down tilt antenna near each door by the stair wells, on every floor, and just create an RF group to tune the radio power down to prevent bleed through between floors, and or provide an AP on every Floor near the stair Well doors, and again just tune the radios down.  For elavator, I'm thinking it's probably best to go with an AP in every elevator?  I tried an AP on a Stick outside the elevator, and when I got inside and close the door, there wasn't any signal?  I really appreciate the communities thoughts and or advice and experience in this?

Thanks...

For stairwells, typically you should place an AP near the stairwell or at least measure if it would penetrate from outside the stairwell.  Some stairwells have material that make it difficult to get RF through.  You also might not be able to drill a hole into the stairwell to run an ethernet cable for an AP, so your options are limited.  Downtilt antennas are still limited by their obstrunctions;  but the majority of the campus APs that Aruba makes  today. have built-in downtilt antennas, so in most cases anywhere you can mount a campus AP, you will have downtilt coverage.  Again, do a test in the area to see how much mileage you would get.

With regards to elevators, most people don't even attempt due to the cost; and those are very well-capitalized organizations.  If you search for elevator on this forum, you will be able to see how painful it is and what others have done.

Thanks for your help colin....