Agree about the sweeping statement... We aren't even consistent about whether we do the design in-house or contract it out. (It's different building to building based on budget and resources at the time.) There have been optimal and not-so-optimal results from both approaches. :)
-- Hunter Fuller Network Engineer VBRH M-9B +1 256 824 5331 Office of Information Technology The University of Alabama in Huntsville Systems and Infrastructure I am part of the UAH Safe Zone LGBTQIA support network: http://www.uah.edu/student-affairs/safe-zone On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 12:55 PM, Brian Helman <[email protected]> wrote: > I hate sweeping statements like "most Universities do not do the Wi-Fi > engineering work in house and usually put the design in the RFP", and I would > have to disagree with it. It has been my experience in working with this > group as well as numerous WiFi vendors that it's a pretty even mix of using > consultants/RFP, free/paid services provided by WiFi vendor, WiFi > vendor/owner partnership or University IT design. Having said that, if you > feel your budget will support using a consultant, go for it. Just be > prepared to babysit them as they go from building to building. > > If you are looking for detailed analysis of building materials, I have yet to > see a consultant to does the proper survey though -- put a set of radios in a > space for a few days and read the logs. Every consultant I've seen just > does a heat-map analysis. That's not going to tell you how the coverage > works when your classrooms/lecture halls are fully populated. With 11ac, > personally I think the design is easier than 11n... because the signals just > aren't going to travel like 11n/2.4GHz, so we're all adding radios to just > about every room .. in general, not going through more than 1 wall. > > I'll try to hit your survey and am also interested in what others have to say. > > -Brian > > -----Original Message----- > From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jerry Bucklaew > Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2015 12:54 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] RFP question > > Colleagues, > > We are starting an initiative to upgrade our Wi-Fi infrastructure. Our > current infrastructure was built in-house incrementally over the past several > years. It is 802.n based and not as dense as we would like so we are looking > at moving to 802.11ac with a significant increase in AP/antenna density to > reduce the number of devices associating with each AP and improve performance. > > We are currently working on a RFP for hardware and figured we would do > the engineering layout, installation and configuration in-house. We > had a review meeting with a consultant who indicated that most Universities > do not do the Wi-Fi engineering work in house and usually put the design in > the RFP. This has led us to question whether we are following best practices > for design engineering. We suspect that this may also depend on the size of > the institution and the network staff. > > While I’m sure that we could achieve a more optimal initial coverage plan by > hiring someone to do a more detailed analysis of building materials and RF > propagation characteristics, I’m wondering if the additional time and expense > derives a net benefit over doing the design in house. > > So we figured we’d post this to our peers and try to evaluate what the rest > of you have experienced, or are planning. We have developed a short survey > (9 questions) to assess the design approach and a couple other parameters. > It should only take about 5 minutes to fill out, and as always the more > participants, the better the results. > > > You can access this survey at http://vovici.com/wsb.dll/s/8727g57943 > > We would appreciate your participation in the survey. I will leave it up for > a week and then post the results back to the list for all to see. I will > segment them into large schools and small schools as I > suspect there might be a difference there. I can segment it different > ways if people want to see it. > > ********** > Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent > Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
