In Search of an Accurate Site Survey
This week's big Wi-Fi news was Ekahau's introduction of the Sidekick , an easy-to-carry, laptop battery-conserving device designed to make Wi-Fi site surveying more elegant. Unfortunately, it appears to do more to exacerbate Wi-Fi problems than to solve them. What is the number one problem in enterprise Wi-Fi? It surely can't be security. Security is a hot topic, but Wi-Fi security isn't really a problem anymore. Even security problems that Wi-Fi gets blamed on -- Pineapple hijacking, Wi-Phishing, man-in-the-middle -- either aren't problems for modern devices & applications, or are problems that extend beyond Wi-Fi. Maybe it's user density? Or supporting a variety of devices? Maybe it's connection issues; when moving or when the device is idle for too long? Whatever the answer, chances are it comes down to one overarching issue: different Wi-Fi devices behave differently. Capacity testing gets done using laptops, then smartphones cause th...