Most commercial WiFi problems in the Savannah area come down to design, not hardware. An office, a retail floor, a restaurant and a distribution center each put very different demands on a wireless network, and a layout that works in one will drop connections in another. Warehouses are the hardest case of all, which makes them a useful way to explain what proper commercial WiFi installation actually involves. If your building is an office, a clinic or a restaurant instead, our guide to commercial wireless network design in Savannah covers the same ground for those spaces.
Why warehouses are the hardest commercial WiFi environment
It is a challenging area in terms of RF: it often has high ceilings and lots of steel racks, and RF interference is constantly changing.
Warehouses are difficult areas for Wi-Fi use, and requires an engineered design to function properly. Industries are increasingly using bar code scanners that heavily rely on adequate Wi-Fi.
Warehouse Devices:
The devices themselves vary, but they are used to provide maximum performance for employees to perform their daily tasks.
From voice-picking headsets to handheld barcode scanners, there is a dense network of active devices all competing for the same airtime.
Any transmission problem can mean that employees are waiting for the network to recover. This can greatly impact productivity and become frustrating for employees.
It is a difficult problem to fix. Therefore, there are many excellent lessons learned that should be considered:
A predictive site survey is essential:
- If you don’t design it properly, it won’t work!
- A predictive survey will highlight any potential dead zones in your environment.
AP height is important:
- It is a compromise between providing a wide arc cover when using a high AP and reducing the transmit power.
Antenna types are important:
- While some APs use an internal antenna, in some areas, you will need external
- Size, gain, height and angle are all important.
Mount Design:
- There is no universal mount for all locations. Custom mounts will be needed for proper deployment.
Design Guidelines:
The type of access point, placement, angle, power and channel are all important.
Warehouses are difficult sites to support high-quality, high-performance Wi-Fi.
Predictive Design, Pre-deployment Survey and Post Deployment Survey are key steps that must be performed.
You have to design, scale, modify and improve the design. It is a repetitive process, but it is how you get reliable Wi-Fi in a difficult environment.
Of course, following these guidelines does not mean that everything will work without issues, some client devices will require extra attention to ensure they will function as intended.
Commercial operations of every kind increasingly run on wireless. Poor Wi-Fi performance hurts productivity and it reduces the company’s profitability.
Good installation should provide the needs of the devices (and people) who are connected to the network.
We are always here to help. We design, install and improve many deployments, so reach out to LCT for any wireless infrastructure needs!
Need WiFi that reaches the back racks? Our network & structured cabling team designs warehouse wireless across the Savannah area, part of our full warehouse IT support offering.