Putting on my ex-physicist hat for a moment... Without knowing what the experiment is and how it and its room are shielded, it's hard to tell. That being said, giving the concerned faculty member the specs (power level, gain, frequencies) and offering to reduce the power or turn off one of the radios, or do a "Let's try it out, and we'll turn it off if it does interfere?" offer might work. It might also help to explain that enterprise Wi-Fi devices are pretty "clean" and do typically not radiate appreciably outside of their intended frequencies. Give them all the technical data necessary for them to make the judgment, and do it with some olive branches to avoid the impression that IT is running over the needs or desires of faculty but rather wants to work with them.
Considering that cordless phones and microwave ovens among others will cause just as much if not more interference on 2.4 GHz than a Wi-Fi AP, it seems to me that unless their surroundings have been specifically sanitized you'd not be introducing anything new, which could also be a point to make. These, of course, are my personal opinions, not those of my employer. -- Toivo Voll -----Original Message----- From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Julian Y Koh Sent: Tuesday, June 04, 2013 5:23 PM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] RF interference from 802.11 Has anyone had to deal with researchers claiming that 802.11 RF causes interference with their laboratory experiments and apparatus? We're getting rumblings out of our Physics department - they are trying to prevent APs from getting installed in their area because of what they say are highly sensitive devices that will be adversely affected. My personal opinion is....well, I'll withhold that for now. Anyone gone through this? Thanks in advance! -- Julian Y. Koh Acting Associate Director, Telecommunications and Network Services Northwestern University Information Technology (NUIT) 2001 Sheridan Road #G-166 Evanston, IL 60208 847-467-5780 NUIT Web Site: <http://www.it.northwestern.edu/> PGP Public Key:<http://bt.ittns.northwestern.edu/julian/pgppubkey.html> ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
