FIT1047 The WLAN Site Survey

Create a map of the place you want to survey. A simple floorplan will be sufficient, it doesn’t have to be perfectly to scale (see below for an example). Your survey should cover an area of at least 60 square meters (e.g. 6x10 meters, or 4x15, or two storeys of 6x5 each). Be creative – the survey can include hallways or outside areas. Be sure to take the analysis in part 1.2 into account, by designing your survey to include walls, doors etc. it will be easier to write something interesting in part 1.2. Furthermore, your survey must include at least three WiFi access points. These can
be your own, but can also include neighbours’ APs. If you are scanning in a commercial area or on campus, you should be able to see enough APs. If you want, you can create an additional AP with a phone (using “Personal hotspot” or “Tethering” features).

For the survey, use a WLAN sniffing tool (see below) at at least eight different locations on your map. For each location, record the technical characteristics of all visible APs. Depending on the scanning tool you use, you can record features such as the network name, MAC address, signal strength, security, 802.11 version(s) supported, band (2.4 or 5 GHz) and channel(s) used.Add the data gathered from the survey into the map of the covered area. On the map you should indicate the location of the access points and the locations where you took measurements.For the access points, use the actual location if you know it, or an approximation based on the observed signal strength (e.g. if its your neighbours access point and you dont know exactly where it is).

 

For each measurement point, you can either add the characteristics directly into the map, or create a separate table with the details. You can submit several maps if you choose to enter data directly into the maps,or a single map if you use additional tables. Create the map yourself, do not use the mapping features available in some commercial (i.e., paid) WLAN sniffing tools. 

 

Write a report (word limit 600) on your observations analysing the data collected in the previous step. The report does not have to follow any particular structure (i.e. simply answering the following questions is enough, you don’t need an executive summary, table of contents etc). Your analysis should investigate the following aspects:

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

justify;">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	192.168.80.204	04:18:D6:0E:B0:B5	v5.5.6
LM5	Gate to Admin	192.168.80.203	80:2A:A8:7E:DD:56	v5.6.2
LM5	Gate 1	192.168.80.202	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.