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Placing Access Points
Solutions to RF Interference and Barriers
These days, finding an environment with no RF interference or
noise is nearly impossible. Only if you are setting up an office in
a secluded redwood grove can you count on RF interference to
be a non-issue. Even then, the redwood trees might just be
among those fitted with high-gain cellular antennas, an all-too-
common occurrence today. Regardless, you should expect to
deal with some level of signal interference in your deployment.
Location A – Rogue access points or wireless test lab
•
Problem
– Wireless product test labs and other (non-
malicious) rogue access points are problems in many Wi-Fi
deployments. Even if the access points in question are
using different SSID nomenclature, channel overlapping is
almost sure to be a bandwidth buster for legitimate users.
•
Solution
–
Either eliminate all rogue access points, or
force their owners to use a set channel that does not
overlap with your distributed wireless solution. For
dedicated wireless test labs, or areas that must be
secluded from RF noise, convert that specific area into a
Faraday cage, blocking a significant amount of wireless
signals from entering or leaving the room.
Note:
The Faraday cage was developed by 19th century
inventor Michael Faraday. It demonstrates that a room
built of a conductive material will shield its contents
from electric or static electric currents. This effect also
exists for wireless radio transmissions, although to a
lesser extent.
A
C
B
