Hi Philippe:
-Destruction/disappearance of APs
Of our ~150 dorm based AP's that have been in place for ~2 years none
have disappeared or been destroyed, fortunately, to date. Please note
that some of these have been installed within the dorm rooms to achieve
better coverage zones. The policy with regards to AP's within dorm rooms
is much more fluid as the residents within that room/apartment will have
to share the bill in the event of either of these scenarios.
- Interferences by cordeless phones
Has not been that much of an issue for us thus far. All AP's are 2.4 GHz
based...
- Interference from rogue APs (innocent or voluntary)
Internally within the dorms, this was an issue earlier in the deployment
cycle till we could provide a practically possible 'ubiquitous' coverage
setup. Externally we still have some issues as our dorms our flanked by
privately owned residential apartments on one side, close enough,
whereby interference is still an issue. We have had to play around with
our channels to minimize the impact...
- Do you do use vendors that provide a Wi-Fi defense (Airtight,
Airmagnet, Built-in Meru disassociation)
None yet. As a result disassociation with respect to internal rogue AP's
is a little arduous at best. Blocking clients in response to RIAA/MPAA
etc. complaints and/or malicious (intended or not) activity is done
manually.
- If you have a wired port for every student, is wireless becoming a
replacement or is it a complement
Wireless service is still considered a compliment to the wired service.
However based on a recent survey among our residents, usage of wireless
as against the wired service is now approaching a 3:2 ratio and is
moving more so towards wireless as students of this day and age lean
towards more mobile technologies.
- ...and all these ugly ones that we have not thought about
Our University hosts a National Center on Deafness program and has a
large deaf and hard of hearing community in the dorms. Some effort was
put into making sure that their specialized video communication devices
etc. worked with the wireless service. In addition it took some time
(mainly Help Desk related) to get gaming consoles etc. to tie into this
infrastructure
- What are good tips besides "don't do it"
The one thing I would like to add is that one of the ways to reduce the
likelihood of rogue devices appearing on the network to try to make sure
that the coverage footprint is as ideal as possible. It is far easier to
say this than actually doing it...but if it is done results are quite
apparent...
Thank you,
Ranjit
Philippe Hanset wrote:
So, we have had a 100% coverage of WLAN on campus
since 2001, dealing with all kinds of problems,
and sharing our adventures with this list.
We also have a 100% WLAN network in our
dormatories based on Linksys, Netgear,...
and completely funded by students: read 100% rogue.
This cheap architecture doesn't seem to cut it anymore,
we are going to provide a centrally managed WLAN in the dorms.
Here is a list of positive things that we thought about, if you wouldn't
mind sharing your experience with us, we will be eternally greatful:
-Destruction/disappearance of APs
-Interferences by cordeless phones
-Interference from rogue APs (innocent or voluntary)
-Do you do use vendors that provide a Wi-Fi defense
(Airtight, Airmagnet, Built-in Meru disassociation)
-If you have a wired port for every student, is wireless
becoming a replacement or is it a complement
-...and all these ugly ones that we have not thought about
What are good tips besides "don't do it"
Thank you in advance
Philippe
----------------------------------
Philippe Hanset
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Office of Information Technology
Network Services
108 James D Hoskins Library
1400 Cumberland Ave
Knoxville, TN 37996
Tel: 1-865-9746555
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