I’ll answer inline.
From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv <[email protected]> on behalf of "Lee, Steven" <[email protected]> Reply-To: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv <[email protected]> Date: Friday, October 13, 2017 at 11:43 AM To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] Outdoor WiFi infrastructure experiences/strategies? There is quite a bit to think about here, so in an effort to keep the scope in a hopefully reasonable place, I’d love to hear what others are doing regarding the infrastructure (not so much the networking and RF at this point) and overall campus strategy. * Has anyone already developed a comprehensive campus wide strategy? * We have an informal strategy and have been trying to work with our Campus Architects to formalize it and get something we can work off of and expect to be allowed to deploy. Our idea is to agree on a small number of options for deployment that is pre-approved and then ask to use “Option A” at a particular site. * Did you leverage buildout of cellular micro sites? * No. * What kinds of locations/areas do you find that your users get the most value/appreciation out of the service? * We are wanting to have complete coverage across our entire camus, but the priority areas are major walking paths, and green spaces. We are starting to discover in heavy foot traffic areas people walking by can become a sort of DoS on Wi-Fi inside the building because they associate to indoor APs as they walk by and sometime max out the number of associations allowed. * Where do you physically install the AP’s and has that kind of deployment been successful? * rooftops with directional antennas? * This is how most of our outdoor is deployed, but from a tall building there is a lot of signal loss just getting down to the ground and you want to be careful not to have the signal bleed back into the building too much and impact indoor coverage. We also had to turn of “short-guard interval”. * exterior wall mounts? * We have some of this type on our new residence halls and I think from a performance perspective this is a much better scenario. We have been allowed to build in the external wall mount on our residence halls because they are governed by our Housing and Food Services; on campus buildings it either adds too much cost to projects or the aesthetics don’t work and it has been much harder to get approved. Existing buildings this has been a non-starter. * building canopies/overhangs? * One or two sites, but this has been a hard sell for the same reasons as external wall mounts. * light poles? * This would be ideal, but we have so many different types of lighting it is nearly impossible to find a consistent solution. After trying to work with our campus architects the new lighting standard makes it nearly impossible to put any wires inside the pole or mount any antennas. * Ideas on aesthetics/concealment/physical access? Ive heard of a use-case where the AP has been buried in flower beds also small antennas in light pole globes. How else do you hide the gear? Any good/bad experiences with custom enclosures and/or external antennas? * I have been trying to push the idea of using bollards, either close to buildings or other foliage areas. This would allow for interior APs (if they meet regulatory specs) or eternal APs and puts the AP right at waist or chest level. * Experiences (suggestions) with providing power for areas out of 802.3 distance specs? Anyone use the hybrid fiber/copper products that are on the market? * We have used Commscope’s hybrid fiber and have been really pleased with it; it save a lot of costs on the install and I find their product is really well designed and flexible. Their system can fully power an AP-275 up to 1 mile and they can fully recover power with up to 50% loss. * How do you plan pathway build-outs? Do you leverage facilities and/or landscape construction to install conduit, etc? * So far, we have been taking advantage of construction projects, but are considering using the mole tunneling to try to get into some areas. We also have underground tunnel system we use to pull connections most of the way and then do what is needed from there. * Any experience with putting hardened equipment (switches/aps) in underground enclosures? * No direct experience with this but there are a number of vaults that can be buried and are designed for this purpose. I could go on and on with questions but I’m really looking for general advice/suggestions/creative ideas/war stories from others who have already gone down this road. Hope this helps. Regards, Amel Caldwell University of Washington UW-IT Wi-Fi Network Engineer Wi-Fi Service Manager [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> 206-543-2915 University of Washington has open positions for Wi-Fi Network Engineers on our Network Design and Architecture team. https://uwhires.admin.washington.edu/ENG/candidates/default.cfm?szCategory=jobprofile&szOrderID=147382&szCandidateID=0&szSearchWords=&szReturnToSearch=1 https://uwhires.admin.washington.edu/ENG/candidates/default.cfm?szCategory=jobprofile&szOrderID=147172&szCandidateID=0&szSearchWords=&szReturnToSearch=1 ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/discuss.
