Once you understand what users need and expect from your WLAN, you can determine the proper placement of your access points based on things like RF behavior, coverage and interference. Interference, for example, can become a problem for some organizations. Although it's easy to get caught up hunting down offending microwaves, cordless phones and Bluetooth devices, it's more common to get interference from other access points in your network, and even from outside networks. 802.11b and 11g, for example, offer the same three nonoverlapping channels in their 2.4-GHz band, which makes planning for a dense deployment or working around the interference of your neighbor's WLAN difficult.
Ideally, Channels 1, 6 and 11 in a 2.4-GHz environment should never be adjacent to the same channel, so they won't interfere with one another. But that's not realistic. You need a healthy amount of cell overlap to let users roam--20 percent to 30 percent is best--but if your site has more than one floor, there will be some bleedover from floor to floor even if you use high-gain antennae. 802.11a's 12 nonoverlapping channels can greatly alleviate channel-allocation headaches.
The 5-GHz band, meanwhile, has little non-WLAN interference, and you'll encounter few neighboring 802.11a access points because the standard hasn't yet seen the popularity of 11b or the recent growth of 11g.
Know how your WLAN's RF signals propagate in your environment: The lower the frequency and the slower the transmission speed of your wireless network, the farther the effective range. Because of the greater RF signal propagation at lower frequencies and the increased sensitivity to signal-to-noise ratios by modulation schemes at higher speeds, a 2.4-GHz 802.11b signal at 1 Mbps will travel significantly farther than a 54-Mbps signal from 5-GHz 802.11a equipment.
Besides the wave-propagation characteristics of different RF bands and variations in throughput, your WLAN's range is limited by free-space path loss and attenuation. Free-space path loss, which is more of an issue in open or outdoor environments, is the expanding and dispersing of radio signals as their wave fronts broaden, preventing them from being heard by receiving antennae. Attenuation is more common in indoor installations: This is the decrease in amplitude, or weakening of RF signals as they pass through walls, doors and other obstacles. This is why WLANs don't perform well around dense materials like concrete. Even 2.4-GHz signals, which are more resilient than 5-GHz signals when facing this type of physical interference, still experience some RF problems.
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