Integral Networks provides wireless network assessments and systems analysis for organizations in California and Nevada.

Everything You Need to Know About a Wireless Assessments and Systems Analysis

Key Points:

  • A wireless assessment examines wireless installation's environmental, architectural, and configuration factors to check how they affect performance and functionality.
  • Businesses need a holistic wireless assessment to uncover the components and configurations affecting their network performance.
  • An assessment provides insight and recommendations for your business to improve the overall health of its network system.
  • Failure to examine your wireless system denies you the complete picture of how the system inter-operates and how specific components affect the system's performance.
  • You need a qualified engineer to help you assess all the access points and verify installation, alignment, and orientation for optimal functionality.

Superior wireless connectivity is necessary in the business world to ensure efficient operations. While many businesses gloss over wireless assessment — or conduct it improperly — the process is critical to avoid poor coverage issues.

You need wireless assessment, especially when your business resides in a large building or a dense urban area. In such environments, wireless signals have difficulty penetrating thick concrete and metals, which might cause weak signals, inconsistent services, or a non-existent network.

When you consistently experience network problems, your business operations might slow down and compromise productivity.

Wireless Assessment at Its Core

A wireless assessment is a comprehensive analysis of your current wireless installation. The process examines specific environmental, configuration, and architectural factors that affect a wireless network's performance and functionality.

The practice aims to optimize your wireless communication potential, troubleshoot network errors, and improve operational speed.

Items That Wireless Assessment Look For

The analysis focus on several components of a wireless system, which include:

  • Radio Frequency (RF) Coverage: Wireless engineers assess your network RF coverage, capacity, design, and how you've distributed your access point throughout your environment. The technician will check how your radio frequency reacts with a specific environment to prevent or troubleshoot poor coverage issues.
  • Radio Frequency Environment: An expert will examine your environment to identify anything within or around that can affect wireless performance. The wireless technician will determine the presence of thick concrete walls or metals that prevent wireless signal penetration. If present, the technicians will help you resolve the problem.
  • Physical Installation Condition: How you mount and orient access points and antennas play an important role in wireless performance. The network engineer will review your installation to prevent poor signals. When any barriers prevent the wireless signal from passing through, the experts will recommend where to place your access points.
  • Cabling Infrastructure: The cabling infrastructure connecting your access points or network antennas determines your network performance. Many businesses overlook cabling infrastructure as the component of their networks. If poorly done, cabling can quickly become your network's weakest link.
  • Switching infrastructure: Overviewing the switches that handle the traffic from the access point and clients to the network is critical. While switches vary in size, feature, and functionalities, adopting the wrong infrastructure can create an attack vector, posing an intrusion threat.
  • Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) Design and Configuration: An engineer should check your channel arrangement, power setting, numbers of broadcast Service Set Identifier (SSID), data rates, and other WLAN factors that determine system performance. While problems with local networks are easy to troubleshoot, poor configuration and design can affect application and performance, noticeable to users.
  • Integrated components: Assess your Network Access Control (NAC) and network services like Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) to support best-performing WiFi.

What's the Importance of Wireless Assessment

Without a holistic look at your wireless network, it's nearly impossible to get the complete picture of how components of your wireless system interrelate. A wireless assessment is critical in establishing how every network component affects performance.

Assessment allows you to uncover specific components and configurations that affect the performance of your wireless network. You'll get insight into measures you should take to improve the overall health of your system.

Apart from the insights, several other reasons necessitate wireless assessments, including:

1. You'll Identify Problems

Every building has different aspects that interfere with signal strength and distribution, such as:

  • Extra-thick walls
  • Metal presence
  • Temperature fluctuations
  • Poles

Assessment will spot any current issues while citing the solutions to fix the problems.

2. Protect Productivity and Save Money

An assessment will identify signal strength at every point of your building, providing a solid foundation for a radio enhancement system. You'll gather insights about where to put access points to overcome poor signals and interference.

Having strategic locations to place access points eliminates dead spots and poor signals, which would otherwise compromise productivity and cost you money.

3. Enhance Business Security

Business security is critical, and assessment will help you create a secure network for authorized devices. Examining your network will help you select the location of your access points and let you proactively optimize network security.

For example, you can locate areas with better security after assessment, which can help meet compliance regulations.

How Does the Process of Wireless Assessment Service Look Like

The process of wireless assessment varies depending on who you're working with. A typical wireless assessment process should unfold as follows:

  1. An assessment engineer will work with your business to get as much information about your current network as possible.
  2. You will schedule a site visit where the engineer will come to your business location where you deploy the wireless system.
  3. The engineer will assess the area where you deploy the access point to check the installation method, orientation, and alignment during the visit. The wireless technician will also examine your switches to verify the connectivity and terminals of your access points.
  4. The assessment technician will run an analysis tool to capture all performance information about your system while identifying areas that have performance challenges.
  5. While not always needed, our technician might run a Radio Frequency test to offer you detailed information on the Radio Frequency coverage system.
  6. The engineer will deliver an assessment report, which entails a list of findings and recommendations to remediate any issue of concern.

Leverage Integral Networks' Expertise to Identify Areas of Your Wireless Network That Require Improvement

Our network experts have been helping businesses in Reno and Sacramento for nearly two decades to resolve any network performance issues, and we can help you, too. Wireless assessment will help your company improve WiFi performance and extend the life of the existing wireless systems. Contact us today for any help with your wireless system.