One discontent I have with larger Wi-Fi LAN designs in my opinion, is how groups or individuals want their entire site to have seamless roaming with only a single SSID. A single blanketing SSID to cover very large spaces are often used. This can work well to a certain degree, however I believe there is a more precise design method and it involves compartmentalized SSID's and multiple SSID groups. This especially works really well in smaller deployments such as homes, or small businesses. I have used this design on multiple (SB) small business and consumer level deployments with less than 10 AP's site wide, without a WLAN controller, and without cloud management and with huge success.
My compartmentalized SSID design involves having an SSID per AP hotspot to individualize every AP location. This mostly only works with deployments with up to ten wireless Access Points, as the maintenance would be too tedious with deployments having a larger number of AP's. This can be implemented on a larger scale with WLAN controllers and cloud capable AP systems, but I have yet to see it done and executed without internal company politics interfering.
I can try to explain why my compartmentalized Wi-Fi design is better. Let's take my Home Wi-Fi Design for example. I have four Wireless AP Zones. That is four individual AP's each configured with their own individual SSID.
- One AP for the garage, front driveway, and front yard outdoor area.
- One AP for the living room and kitchen.
- One AP for the guest bedroom and master bedroom areas.
- One AP for the home office and back yard outdoor area.
The main reason I do this is to manually ensure that each of my end-user devices is using the strongest, most optimal AP in it's vicinity. For example, if I am using my phone or laptop in my office or back yard zone, I want to make sure it is using the office/backyard AP and I don't want my phone or laptop to be connected to any of the AP's located in the other zones even if the signal strength is still okay. If I am in the kitchen using my iPad looking for food recipes or cooking videos, I want to make sure it is connected to the living room/kitchen AP and not an AP in the other zones. I want to be able to verify that my end device using the right AP for every zone and so forth without wondering if it is still connected to a less optimal AP in a further away zone.
The issue here is the capability and age of each end user device. Each end user device, needs to connect to each zone and AP initially to save each separate network within it's memory. A connection list needs to be populated for each end user device. From there, the roaming is determined only by each device's capability. Newer devices with newer Wi-Fi chipsets seem to handle roaming much more seamlessly and resolve much more quickly than older legacy devices. However as a power user, I can still easily select the Wi-Fi settings within my phone or laptop, and choose the correct, and strongest network SSID manually, if the device didn't already automatically pick the right one. That is one enormous issue with larger deployments using only one SSID. You just don't know if your device is picking the right AP on it's own because they are all under the same SSID name instead of individual ones. It could be picking and using the AP way down the hall 55 feet away instead of the one that is just 15 feet away...
This sort of compartmentalized SSID design works well in deployments with less than 10 AP's and the AP's can be managed individually. When you start getting into larger AP quantities, it becomes far more difficult to manage unless the system is designed around a corporate styled Cisco-like architecture where by the AP's are either controlled via a decentralized cloud management interface over the web, or through a centralized on-site Wireless LAN Controller. That is most likely why I see a large blanket SSID used in offices and buildings. Most often, there will usually be at least three main SSID groups. One SSID name for Guest public use, one SSID name for Faculty and employee use, and one SSID name for I.T. Administration use. The problem here is that even though these SSID's are separate, they are all covering vast spaces rather than being specialized to the zone that they are in.
I believe that troubleshooting times can be reduced, by using the compartmentalized SSID design by shortening the amount of time pinpointing Wi-Fi trouble spots in specific areas, rather than looking through an entire site to fix them.
This brings up another point that AP's IN LARGER DEPLOYMENTS NEED TO BE LABELLED AND DOCUMENTED, to help in locating and troubleshooting when and if a problem is detected. The hardwired Ethernet MAC address, and AP name need to be collected, and maintained. Using a WLAN controller GUI, or a spreadsheet is imperative. It needs to be updated every time an AP is taken out or replaced.
Here's some of my history in I.T. and how I got into Wi-Fi. (I have been in I.T. before Google existed).
I have been in I.T. pretty much since I targeted the industry in my
highschool years. At 14, I knew I was good with computers and pursued it with the help and recommendation of my highschool counsellor Mrs. MacLean. I had
prior experience with Apple Macintosh computers at an early age from elementary school onwards but didn't really take to computer science until 1994. I remember it was around the time just before Windows 95 changed the
world and IBM styled Intel powered PCs became a fascination of mine.
Later on after about a decade of PC
related experience at age 25, I became charmed with Wi-Fi technology and it's potential. Around the
year 2005 after being with the network security tech company IOSecure
for about one year since 2004, I expressed interest in Wi-Fi technology. While Wi-Fi was still in it's early
stages, I had requested training and was given the opportunity to attend multiple courses and conferences
that provided resources for Wi-Fi. In the beginning, I travelled to Las Vegas multiple times to attend Cisco Live conferences and learning classes. In the following years, I travelled a number of times to distant provinces in Canada where I've never been before to perform Wireless Surveys for IOSecure clients. I have been doing Wireless Site Surveys ever since. Roll forward to the present 2021 and for 16 years, I have done
hundreds of walk-throughs, and hundreds of site surveys in the British Columbia and Greater Vancouver Area. I have helped
design deployments tallying nearly 4000 Wi-Fi Access Point deployments for numerous large corporate clients and (SMB) small to medium business clients and have become one of the most experienced professional Wi-Fi surveyors in British Columbia, if not Western Canada.
And while Wi-Fi still remains to be of point of interest to me, working in the industry for so long, I have found myself drifting further from this specific I.T. landscape and focusing on other things going on in my life such as family, and certain lifestyle changes that comes with marriage and fatherhood. My wife and I have a son that is Autistic. Being a special needs parent is a full-time job, and family has always been a priority for me.
