About netsurveyor
This report is a WLAN site survey. The report has produced a map for a four-storey building in Australia which gives an overview of the wireless network. The floor plan was developed using Microsoft Visio 2013. The building has Three WiFi access points. Netsurveyor type of WiFi sniffing tool was used to scan the available Access Points; this was done in eight different locations as shown on the map. For each location technical characteristics of the Access Point was recorded i.e. the network name, signal strength, the channel used, and 802.11 version supported.
1.1 Survey
1.2 Report
About netsurveyor
It is a 802.11 WiFi sniffing tool which gathers information and statistics about the Access Points and displays them in real time. This report adopted the tool as it easy to use and had a lot of features. The information gathered about a certain access point can be displayed using different views and charts. The tool can also be used in troubleshooting a certain Access point and reporting to the network administrator about the performance of the Access Points (Rappaport, 2011).
Diagrams one all through to eight shows scans of location one to eight in the Site survey plan
At Point 1
By using netsurvey WiFi scanning tool figure shows a snapshot of the data gathered.
From the WiFi scanner, it shows that there were two Access Points which were detected, which were Computer Lab Internet Access Point, Store WiFi Access Points. Some of the features detected from the computer Lab Access Point are;
SSID: Computer Lab Internet
- MAC address: c4:6e:1f: ff: 6a:46
- Channel: 1
- Beacon Stregth: -33
- Becon quality: 501.1872
- Signal strength: Excellent
- Radio Type: OFMDD 24 (Lo?pez & Zhou, 2010)
- Interference: None
Stores WiFi Access Point
- SSID: Stores WiFi
- Channel: 1
- Radio Type: OFDM
- Signal quality: Low and has no encryption
Notes
At point one, the coverage of computer Lab WiFi is at in maximum, infact as shown from the diagram the signal strength is excellent. Another aspect is Computer Lab WiFi is encrypted which requires one to login to access the wide area network. Both two access Points have a channel occupancy of one (Backes, 2013).
At Point 2
SSID: Computer Lab Internet
- MAC address: c4:6e:1f: ff: 6a:46
- Channel: 1
- Beacon Strength: -33
- Becon quality: 501.1872
- Signal strength: Excellent
- Radio Type: OFMDD 24
- Interference: None
- Stores WiFi Access Point
SSID: Stores WiFi
- Channel: 1
- Radio Type: OFDM
- Signal quality: Low and has no encryption (Hac?, 2016)
At Point 3
SSID: Stores WiFi Access Point
- MAC address: c4:6e:1f: ff: 6a:46
- Channel: 1
- Beacon Stregth: -33
- Becon quality: 501.1872
- Signal strength: Excellent
- Radio Type: OFMDD 24
- Interference: None
ADYY WiFi Access Point
- SSID: ADYY
- Channel: 6
- Radio Type: Unkown
- Signal quality: Low and has no encryption
At Point 4
SSID: TECHNO NYS Access Point
- MAC address: c4:6e:1f: ff: 6a:46
- Channel: 1
- Beacon Strength: -33
- Becon quality: 501.1872
- Signal strength: Excellent
- Radio Type: OFMDD 24
- Interference: None
ADYY WiFi Access Point
- SSID: ADYY
- Channel: 6
- Radio Type: Unkown
- Signal quality: Low and has no encryption
At Point 5
SSID: Computer Lab Internet
- MAC address: c4:6e:1f: ff: 6a:46
- Channel: 1
- Beacon Stregth: -33
- Becon quality: 501.1872
- Signal strength: Excellent
- Radio Type: OFMDD 24
- Interference: None
Stores WiFi Access Point
- SSID: Stores WiFi
- Channel: 1
- Radio Type: OFDM
- Signal quality: Low and has no encryption
At Point 6
SSID: TECHNO-NYS
- MAC address: c4:6e:1f: ff: 6a:46
- Channel: 1
- Beacon Strength: -33
- Becon quality: 501.1872 (Akyildiz, 2014)
- Signal strength: Excellent
- Radio Type: OFMDD 24
- Interference: None
Computer Lab WiFi Access Point
- SSID: Stores WiFi
- Channel: 1
- Radio Type: OFDM
- Signal quality: Low and has no encryption
At Point 7
SSID: Computer Lab Internet
- MAC address: c4:6e:1f: ff: 6a:46
- Channel: 1
- Beacon Stregth: -33
- Becon quality: 501.1872 (InstitutionofEngineeringandTechnology, 2011)
- Signal strength: Excellent
- Radio Type: OFMDD 24
- Interference: None
ADDYY WiFi Access Point
- SSID: Stores WiFi
- Channel: Unknown
- Radio Type: Unknown
- Signal quality: Low and has no encryption
Two access points as shown by figure 2 are competing for the same Channel; channel 1. The two are configured in a search a way that they use the same overlapping channels. Access Point three (Techno NYS) had a different channel which was unknown. Computer Lab Access Point had no interference at six locations but at two locations the signal strength was excellent. From my findings I noted, some attenuation in all the Access Points. This could have been brought up walls. Only one Access Point; computer lab Access point which covered the desired area. Other two access point only covered (AP1 and AP2 on figure 1) had very poor coverage. This can only be improved by relocating the two access Points to increase the coverage. In addition, AP3 device need to be replaced to a TP-Link type of access.
By pinging the site by using speedtest.com table 2 shows the upload Mbps, ping ms, and download Mbps.
Table 2: Pinging table of the site
Ping ms |
Download Mbps |
Upload Mbps |
53 |
4.42 |
3.28 |
Findings
Beside the Four Access Points discovered, I also used a Ubiquiti discovery tool to find out the radio Access Points of the Area. Figure 9 shows what I found out by running the Ubiquiti discovery tool while Table one below shows the findings I foundafter scanning the site.
Table 1: Ubiquiti Discovery tool
Device Type |
Radio Name |
Host IP address |
Mac Address |
Firmware |
AG5 |
comp lab LRC |
04:18:D6:0E:B0:B5 |
v5.5.6 |
|
LM5 |
Gate to Admin |
80:2A:A8:7E:DD:56 |
v5.6.2 |
|
LM5 |
Gate 1 |
80:2A:A8:7E:DD:88 |
v5.6.2 |
From the analysis it is evident that Computer Lab WiFi always had excellent strength in all the eight locations where WiFi scanning was done. From my view, one of the factors is that there very minimal interference from the Access Points to the six locations. In addition, to this, it is of my view that Computer Lab Access Point accessed the internet from the micro-tik type of router which is able to spilt both network well if configured appropriately. Stores WiFi Access Point was able to access the internet from a switch which.
Conclusion
Only two locations where the Access Point had good signal strength where one could access the Internet with ease and one location where signal strength was at its best. The radio Firmware which was used could also have affected the signal strength of a given Access Point. Techno-NYS Access points was only strong at one location which was at point seven.
References
Akyildiz, I. F., 2014. Wireless sensor networks. 2nd ed. Chichester: Wiley.
Backes, F. G. V. P. C. a. W. H., 2013. Wireless channel selection method and system using scanning for identifying access point. U.S. Patent 7, 3(III), pp. 112-119.
Hac?, A., 2016. Wireless sensor network designs by Anna Hac?. 3rd ed. Chicago: Chichester.
InstitutionofEngineeringandTechnology, 2011. IET Wireless Sensor Systems.. 1st ed. New York: UK: Institution of Engineering and Technology,.
Lo?pez, J. & Zhou, J., 2010. Wireless sensor network security by Javier Lo?pez. 1st ed. New York: IOS Press.
Rappaport, 2011. Wireless communications. principles and practice, 3(II), pp. 67-79.