There are a number of factors to keep in mind when running wireless networks and voip phones.
First and foremost, wireless is a shared environment, whereas hard wired devices are not (or at least you control how many devices are on a drop). What this means is that the wireless access POD in the ceiling can accommodate x amount of wireless devices (x depends on manufacturer) and they all share the upload port. So think of it like this: Our network ports are by default 100mb, a desktop pc is hardwired inline with VOIP phones so both share that 100mb port. A robust setup that has worked for us well for many years. A wireless POD, however, allows up to 16 (for us) connections, so if you have a bunch of carts and voip phones operating in the same area they will ALL share the 100mb port that the POD is plugged into. Major slowdown. When a few nurses wander down the hall then all of a sudden the slow area gets faster as the network hands over these users to the next closest POD. Furthermore, the QOS will give the voip phone priority and, depending on how your voip is setup, the phone will take the maximum amount of bandwidth. Voip phones can usually be set (with cisco it can) to a bandwidth rate which is supposed to reflect where you are. For example, if I'm at home and using my softphone over a WAN connection the system will automatically give me a low bandwidth phone connection (not as good a quality but manageable). Anywhere internally over our network the system will use the maximum to provide the best quality phone call. One solution that you can try is to up your amount of wireless pod's that cover the problem area. Personally I would call in your wireless company and have them do a study so they can recommend a proper answer. If you have wireless monitoring software you should be able to do a report on the PODS in that area to see if they are overloaded. Along with that possible solution you then also look at setting your POD to allow less connections at the same time so they will then automatically go to the new POD and that will then give users more speed. (most systems will automatically shuffle users to other available PODS to maximize throughput). Another solution is to look at throttling back your voip phone bandwidth usage for wireless connections - but I would go with more pods first as dropping bandwidth often equates to lower quality phone calls and no-one likes that. Testing, however, would allow you to consider if it's worth it. What I have found is that the very benefit of wireless, mobility, can cause havoc with managing networks. You can design you wireless POD layout perfectly only to find out months later that the 'gathering' area where staff congregate has moved and now you have lots of coverage in the area they no longer go to and not enough POD coverage in the new area. This then, in turn, causes slowdowns and frustration and is always IT's fault. The wireless world, more so than the hard wired world, is a constantly evolving beast. I therefore highly recommend using software that can tell you how the POD's are faring - are they constantly overloaded, are they under utilized, etc. etc. That will help you ensure you have adequate POD's in the needed areas. Also, don't forget that wireless is a 3 dimensional world, where POD's from the floors below and above can also assist with network connections as long as they reach the affected area. Hope this helps... Gary Gevaert >>> Practice Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty <<< Project Analyst Niagara Health System - Shaver Site DataCentre Building 541 Glenridge Avenue St. Catharines, Ontario L2T 4C2 www.niagarahealth.on.ca Phone: 905-378-4647 x 44806 -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Gearry Judkins Sent: July 3,2007 1:01 PM To: Moody, Barbra Cc: Meditech L (E-mail) Subject: Re: [MEDITECH-L] Wireless and VoIP Moody, Barbra wrote: > Hello Everyone, > > We are having problems with our wireless carts and our VoIP and we aren't sure exactly what's happening. We know that when our VoIP communication devices hit the wireless network it knocks everything down to B from G and slows everyone down. We were told that we couldn't run them on 2 different networks because the would clash. This is making PCS run so slow on the carts that the nurses are complaining loudly. It is much slower than the PC's at the desk. Have any of you had problems like this or have any suggestions? > Are your Wireless VOIP phones B only? A single B/G wireless radio can not operate in both modes at the same time. If 802.11B is enabled, the entire radio will throttle down to the B mode once there is an 802.11B device associated. That means all other B/G devices in that footprint also need to throttle down to communicate with the access point. I suspect this is what is currently happening. You can also easily run into bandwidth problems if your AP density is very low, causing many devices to share access points. Another factor that could contribute to this is QOS. If your VOIP vlan gets priority, than other devices are going to get diminished performance when VOIP uses large amounts of bandwidth. However, based on your description I would guess that the first scenario is more likely. 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