How to Design a Wireless Network

Video Transcript

"Hello we are here to talk about designing a wireless network infrastructure. It's a pretty simple process, really there are only about four considerations that I usually take in account whenever I am designing a wireless network. First you have to know the number of machines that you're going to be operating wirelessly. This is because of mostly DHCP IP address considerations. If you don't have the ability to assign IP addresses to the of number of machines that you're going to have, then you need to take that into account. The second item is the area of coverage. Typically a access point will give you about 90 meters in diameter from the central point so if you have something that's more than 90 meters then you're obviously going to have to start thinking about adding secondary and third access points. And in order to really do that you also have to consider what kind of obstacles are in the way for instance if you have an access near an elevator then the electrical interference from the elevator is actually going to degrade the signal so you're actually not going to get the full 90 meter reach from your access point. So that's something to consider. Third is the security considerations. So obviously whenever you have a wireless access point that is tied into your corporate network, you obviously want to make sure that people can't just come by and get onto your network. So you have to make sure that it's as locked down as it can be while still allowing your people to be able to access the resources on your network. And the last thing to consider is the hardware that you're going to purchase. A lot of times people will they'll assume that in order to have a good wireless network you have to spend thousands and thousands of dollars to be able to do so, but in reality you can get three or four wireless or a wireless router and a couple of additional access points for under 500 dollars. And that's strictly in the corporate sense. Now if you're working at home then obviously you would just need one device. But those are some things to consider."