RE: Unifi wifi AP's

["Phil Harris" <phil@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Yeah - doing shows and such like nowadays is an absolute nightmare ...
the
venue obviously want to try to get you to use their WiFi (and often
specifically exclude you from throwing up your own wireless network) but
can
you imagine somewhere like ISE or CEDIA with a couple of hundred exhibitors
with all their kit streaming media on a single network ...

The "boss" usually just expects you to be able to throw in a self
contained
network and use that because you use it for dealer demos and of course
assumes you can use WiFi so that you don't have the hassle of wiring the
stand for Ethernet (as the stand builders generally don't understand that
yet).

WiFi really shouldn't be used by anything other than portable devices and I
mourn the passing of 802.11a which was actually a really good standard -
short range and 5GHz - and would have been a great basis for building a
nice
stable, reliable managed network. :-)

Phil

>
> What you *NEED* for a reliable WiFi network is numerous short range
> WiFi APs with a tightly controlled performance envelope and seamless
> handoff between grouped APs (generally using a centralised AP
> controller to manage the controlled handover of connections between
> APs) - then everything works as it should. (Just think of it as a
> cell-phone setup but on a smaller scale.)
>
> Greater range / sensitivity just means that you come into conflict
> with more wireless networks and have more wireless networks
> conflicting with you and your devices hang on to a poorly performing
> connection for longer.
>
> WiFi is so poorly understood when it is used in the real world that it
> is almost useless!
>
>
Oh Yes!

Have been at conferences in the US (couple thousand geeks), where people
with MiFi's were completely trampling over the conf WiFi due to channel
conflict and broadcasting at higher power.

Andy



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