2 edits | reply to kfowler
Re: Wireless Network slow in Hospital This is going to be long winded.
kfowler, if possible you really need to convince your higher ups of doing a site survey for the hospital. I cant stress this enough especially for a problematic environment like yours. Right now its an environmental issue you're running into (and I'll get to this in a bit), so troubleshooting for you without a site survey done would be similar to praying at winning the lottery.
Currently I you should be having two problems due to your environment (note the way I keep stressing your environment). One is multipathing and the other would be due to possible interference.
First would be the issue of multipathing. As you're in an environment with LOTS of reflective surfaces, ie. steel, mirrors, etc., this can cause destructive interference at the receivers end, aka the user.
I'm going to assume you're using 1231 APs or 1242 APs and that you're using 802.11b/g. Second then would be the issue of interference, in the form of other entities using the 2.4GHz band. Possible culprits are devices that use Bluetooth, other wireless access points that you do not control, configured for 802.11b/g, cordless phones, etc. I've even seen HVAC or critical infrastructure systems that use wireless to transmit signals on the 2.4GHz band.
Two recommendations off the top of my head as this is already getting pretty lengthy. ONE, get rid of some of the additional AP's. Additional AP's are only added if there is a coverage issue. In your case without a site survey done, where the location of the AP's were probably picked at random, the additional AP's only aggravate the problem even further because too much signal is being broadcasted which can lead to even more multipathing.
Two, best guidelines dictate that you should run 802.11a for an environment like yours. I'm not saying you cant use 802.11b/g as its definitely possible to get 802.11b/g working well but you'll probably need to get the 1252's which just came out. If you don't have an option of running 802.11a because your clients dont support it, then your only option, without purchasing the 1252's would be to limit the cell size for each AP, in which case the additional AP's will play a role then.
If you're planning in any capacity for voice over wireless, you can forget it. If your data clients are having issues now, voice will be a disaster until this issue is resolved.
In any case, your first objective is to get that site survey. It'll save you A LOT of grief and time. |
