Hotel access point deployment help needed.

[BobY777]

Hello all:

I'm just starting out in hotel site surveys and need help determining the number of access points to cover a hotel. I would really appreciate all input.

I have an rf background, but am just starting out in hotel site surveys. HOtels appear to be much more difficult then open common areas like a coffee shop or airport.

I just surveyed a hotel yesterday that has either concrete or cinder block between rooms. And using an 8 dBi antenna it seems like I can only get a good signal for about 3 adjacent rooms left to right, before the signal falls off significantly. The signal doesn't cover any rooms to the back or rooms on the floor above.

I used an 8 dBi patch directional antenna to help with rf signal penetration of the walls, but only going for 3 rooms seems pretty bad. I tried another access point, just to be sure I didn't have a bad access point the first time.

This hotel has two floors with 140 rooms, so that means I'll need about 46 or 47 access points to do the whole hotel. WOW that seems like a lot of access points for a hotel.

Do other people use this many access points for around 140 rooms with thick cinder block walls?

I also surveyed another hotel yesterday that had thinner walls and less dense material. I could send the signal for about 4 rooms before it got weak using an 8 bBi patch directional antenna. That hotel has two floors with 62 rooms, so that means I'll need about 15 or 16 access points there. That still seems like a lot of access points for a hotel.

I'd love to talk to someone who has actually done this for hotels. You can email me at bob@lavamail.net. If you think a phone call would work better, I could give you my 800 number so it would be a free call for you, if you want to give me a call.

Then last week I was looking at another hotel that has 3 floors with 103 rooms. Those walls must be really thin cause it seems like I only will need 24 access points. But even that seems like a lot of access points for a hotel with just 103 rooms.

I used Netstumbler and an Orinoro Gold Classic pc card on my laptop to check for signal strength. I also double checked it it with my HP iPAQ 5550 using an Orinoco Gold Classic pc card and the Orinoco Site Monitor program. They both seemed to agree with where the signal was getting weak.

Are there any good books or white papers that go into this type of detail for hotel access point deployment?

I need to make some quick determinations of what to do. So thank you ahead of time, for any information you might be able to help me out with here.

Sincerely,

Bob Y

[BobY777]

I forgot to mention that I did do a survey for interference.

No interference was found. I was using the Snoop program for the RangeLAN2 7400 card.

I'm using 802.11b.

Thanks,

Bob Y

[a13088]

Where did you place the AP? inside guest room or at corridor ? I think the signal can only pass through one concrete wall. if you place the AP inside one of the guest room, you can have signal coverage at the rooms just beside, above and below. One AP can cover 5 rooms.

[BobY777]

Hello a13088:

Thank you for the reply.

I put the access point in the room, near where the telephone jack is located. Since I will probably be using VDSL to extend the ethernet up to the room via the phone lines. That seems much easier and less expensive then trying to run ethernet up to the rooms that have the access points. Running the ethernet lines in a hotel could be next to impossible I would think.

Maybe I'm expecting too much from an access point. But I initially thought that only 7 or 8 access points are needed to cover a whole hotel like a Hampton Inn with about 3 floors. That was before I started just recently trying to do site surveys. Now I'm trying to figure out why my findings seems to conflict with what I initially thought as to the number of access points needed to cover a whole hotel.

Thank you for your reply,

Bob Y

[jflynn]

I worked for MobileStar before T-Mobile bought them. I was the guy flown to hotels to inspect the installs and train them on the use of the WLAN. We had done about 100 hotels when I was there.

We typically did them in hallways with patch antennas, with Cat.5 cable between. You don't weant to know what we paid to have each hotelk installed, it was outrageous but the work was quality and professional as demanded by Hilton. Your alternate method is elegant but possibly ineffectual. I take it you are not a cabler by trade? Might want to get Mike the Chicago Telecom Expert's guides on using fish tape, core drilling, cabling. Also learn the appropriate codes for your area. Fiore stops, plenum, etc. I believe this job is going to be much more difficult than you imagined, and hotel owners and mgt are extremely tough customers to please. We recruited a whole department of ex-hotel people just to support hotels.

I saved a number of as-builts in .ppt form showing our various installs in great detail including survey and propagation data. Sorry to be harsh, but using Stumbler and a laptop is cheesy and haphazard. I don't suppose you've figured out to compensate for re-bar and foil-backed wallpaper typically used in hotels? You will soon.

I suppose I could be convinced to sell you some as-builts if you're interested. These are excellent starting points. I'd give them away, but hey - this is business, you're looking to get some billable work and I don't train for free. Hope you understand.

Free tip:
Watch what you promise to hotel people, since it will come back to haunt you. You WILL NOT get 100% coverage without an AP in each room, but 90% is achievable. Believe me, they will call you and not want to pay because Joe Customer in room #225 cannot get RF while sitting on the commode. God help you if you put this stuff in the basement or in meeting rooms. :)

[BobY777]

Hello Mr. Flynn. Thank you for your reply.

I am in the process of looking at three hotels.

One hotel has concrete or cinder block for sure. And it might even have the foil backed wall paper you were talking about, since I can only cover three adjacent rooms using an 8 dBi patch antenna. That sure would necessitate a whole lot of access points in a hotel. I didn't know about the foil backed wall paper. I just knew something was causing difficulty in getting the signal through the walls to the adjacent rooms in the one with concrete walls.

I realize that Netstumbler isn't near as good as Air Magnet, but I figure Air Magnet will just confirm a no signal condition, just as Net Stumbler & my iPAQ did. I do plan on getting Air Magnet after I do one or two hotels.

In the hotel with the very solid walls, in the third room away from the access point, the signal is still quite strong, but when I go to the 4th room away, the signal drops to almost nothing.

The other two hotels have much less dense walls...possibly dry wall, since the signal covers more rooms away from the access point. Although it still doesn't cover as many rooms as I would like. I guess all hotels are different.

I didn't know about the rebar in the walls or the foil backed wall paper, but I would think that would show up in the site survey as a weak signal reception from the access point. I'm going to make sure I'm giving myself a good safety margin as far as signal is concerned by not trying to "streach" the signal too far before deploying another access point.

I will definitely have something in our proposal saying that it's impossible for anyone to guarantee 100% wireless coverage, but that we will substantianlly cover their hotel. Or something to that effect. I'm glad you mentioned that.

The company rep that will be doing the VDSL for us is encouraging us to just put ethernet in each room, since wireless is so much of an art form to getting it to work correctly. Of course I realize he makes more money this way, but he does make a good argument to putting just ethernet in each room, but thats about $275 a room. Seems wireless can be much less expensive, if I could just get the signal to cover a greater area. We could then just put wireless in the common areas, which seem to be much easier to do.

VDSL seems like a pretty good way to go and much less expensive then running CAT5 cable. Although I realize that it has speed limitations, and CAT5 by itself can be much faster. But maybe the speed limitation is a good thing, since it will keep people from hoging up the bandwidth with large file transfers, like music, etc.

You are right, I'm not a cabling person myself, although we do fish CAT5 wiring in the computer networking business we have. We have the Gopher pole, fish tape, and Cable Caster, etc. If we have big cable jobs for the networking section of our business, we do sub contract it out.

I do have an access point in mind to use if a plenum rating is needed, but so far none of the hotels have a dropped ceiling that I can use.

I have already looked into fire stop material if we need to drill through a fire stop. But if we use VDSL, which I would like to do, I need the access point to be close to the room phone line jack to take off the VDSL signal from the phone line, in order to convert it back to ethernet.

I don't look at your comments as harsh. I really appreciate the input from someone who has built these wireless systems in hotels.

I'm not sure I understand what you meant regarding meeting rooms or basements. I assume meeting rooms are wide open areas. As such wouldn't they be pretty easy to cover with just one access point. The only way I can see where there could be a problem, is if they have room dividers that they open and close to segment off a large meeting room. In that case I would have to put in several access points in each subdivided section.

I don't quite see the problem with a basement, although I haven't been asked to provide coverage in any of their basements yet. But I suppose that could happen.

I would be interested in finding out what the avereage number of access points you think is typical for substantially total coverage of a three floor hotel like a Hampton Inn with 103 rooms and with dry wall and normal wall paper. (Note I'm learning to say "substantially total coverage" rather then complete coverage). From what I see now, I have a feeling the average number of access points needed might be somewhere around 18. Thats about 6 per floor...and possibly 8 per floor. You might have an idea of how the Hampton Inn is shapped. Seems like all the Hampton Inns are shapped the same way.

I am considering trying 12 dBi omni antennas in the hotel. I figure it will help keep the signal from going up to the floor above and to the floor below so I don't get co-channel interference, when the same channels are reused on other floors. Plus it will help penetrate the walls a little better. The only problem is I can't figure how to make the 12 dBi omni (about 4 feet long) look esthetically pleasing when deployed in the room. Maybe I can cut a hole in the wall and put it in the wall (assuming the wall isn't foil backed). Or maybe I could disguise the antenna to look like something else. Or maybe put it behind a large wall picture to hide it.

I thank you so much for your input. All input is humbly accepted.

Bob Y

[a13088]

High gain antenna is not designed and recommended for indoor application, especially for hotel guest rooms. I don't think hotel guest will feel happy and comfortable to sleep together with a high gain antenna which considered harm to health.

Hotel full wlan signal coverage is a difficult job. Many hotels will not allow you to make installation inside guest rooms and you can only lay AP in corridor. However, wireless signal is very difficult to pass through the wash room, especially for good hotels with good washroom decoration. Too much AP in corridor will cause interference.

If you can install AP inside guest room, the job will be very simple. Reocomended setup as follows.
1. installation as simple as possible and allow one AP to serve 5 rooms
2. use low power and high sensitive AP (e.g. orinoco) and do not use antenna, antenna installation may be more expensive than AP and hotel guest will not feel comfortable
3. use simple and cheap AP (thin AP), connecting all AP to your access controller with client separation function (very important feature)

Another effective and budget solution is to place AP outside the hotel and use directional antenna pointing to the guest room.

[BobY777]

Hello A13088:

Thank you for your reply.

I went out tonight to a check out a Comfort Inn close to me that supposedly has total WiFi coverage. I connected my 8 dBi omni on my car for good reception and drove around the hotel.

I counted only 8 access points for a hotel with 4 floors. And there are 20 rooms on the top 3 floors and about 16 rooms on the bottom floor.

I can't figure how only 8 access points can cover that whole hotel.


To continue on with my situation:

The corridors of the hotels that I'm looking at don't have dropped ceilings, so it looks like the hotel rooms are the only place to put the access points. I guess behind the night stand or behind the TV stand. That sure puts the antenna in a bad location if the antenna is connected directly to the access point.

You mentioned that the one access point could cover the room it's in and the room above and room below. And the room to the right and the room to the left.

How about the one room across the hall? It would have to go through two walls to get to the room across the hall.

If it could, then that would be 6 rooms.

Have you done access point deployments such as you describe?

I think you are right about using low power on the access point, since that is the "down link" (from the access point to the client). But we also have to worry about the "up link" (from the client to the access point). So doing a site survey using a low power access point helps assure that the client will be closer to the access point and be able to maintain the uplink connection. At least I hope that is how it works. That is the way it worked when I worked in cellular telephone engineering for almost 16 years.

You are right about the high gain antennas being expensive. I guess if I don't use high gain antennas, then I naturally will have to use more access points. But from a health stand point thats good. I guess I can explain that to the hotel owner, that I kept the effective radiated power low by using low gain antennas (and thus couldn't cover as many rooms as with a high gain antenna). That way no one could complain about health issues.

So if I need many more access points, like you say, I should use lower cost access points...I guess that's what you call "thin" access points.

I guess that rules out the Proxim AP 600s I was going to use. I guess I could use the WAP 11 Linksys access points. They are cheap enough. They don't have some of the features I would like to have (like intra cell blocking), but I guess I could get by without that...I could just tell tell the users to get their own software firewall on their laptops for security. I was at a hotel in St. Paul, Minn that used Linksys.

When you say "client access controller", is that the same as the "intra cell blocking" of Proxim? In other words, it's a firewall between all users? The only way I know to accomplish that is to have the users use a software firewall on their laptops. We are going to use the D-Link DSA-3100 Internet gateway. I don't know if that has a firewall in it between all users. Maybe you have a name and model number of an access controller that you were talking about?

I do like that idea of placing the AP outside the hotel. I might look into that. Only problem, is I don't have any idea right now of where I could mount the access point outside the building. Maybe I could have about 4 small tv towers errected . Two on one side of the one hotel and two on the other side, with an outdoor access point on each tower with their directional antennas pointing towards the sides of the building.

I can see that deployment of access points in places like coffee shops and airports and other common areas, is much much easier then deployment in hotels.

Well I'm looking at this as a good learning experience. The main thing is I want to make sure I'm not leaving any stone unturned as far as giving very good coverage for our clients. With that in mind, and an access point only covering about 5 rooms, that means that a good sized hotel could have between 20 to 40 access points to get the job done. With that in mind, I still can't see hot the Comfort Inn close to my home can have only 8 access points. I think I will go over there on Monday and take Netstumbler and walk through their hotel to see about where the access points are and how strong the signal is indoors.

Thank again a13088 for your kind input. Have a nice weekend.

Bob Y

[a13088]

It will be the best if you can put AP inside the guest room. You cannot expect wireless signal to pass through two walls. Sometimes it will be OK but it is always not OK. Thus, one AP can only serve 5 rooms. Due to the shielding effect of two washrooms, you cannot expect wireless signal penetrating to the opposite room.

I do not have RF background but have been in wlan business for over 4 years. I do not have much experience in hotel coverage , mainly due to the problem in installation and business model. I had good experience with St.Regis Beijing. Due to very good structure of the building and unable to make construction inside guest room, we finally gave up the project.

In China, China Mobile and China Netcom work with hotels in setting up the public wlan network. We work with the carriers and provide the systems to them.

Access controller is an equipment for customer access control, authentication and billing. Nomadix (www.nomadix.com) is one of the choice. You can study for details.

It is unwise or not suitable to ask customer to install any software so as to use your network. Security and privacy is the main concern. Client separation or blocking is to prevent clients to see or ping to each other in the wireless network.

The performance of low power and high sensitive AP will be similar or even better than a high power and low sensitive AP.

We are wlan SI company in China. We are the pioneer and cooperating with coffee shops, restaurants and hotels in providing free wireless lan service (www.wlan.com.cn) .

I would like to share the practical with you. Pls email to mma@cytech.com.cn for further interest. I do not have RF and technical background and maybe have to ask for your advice in future.

Cheers

Michael Ma

[spiderbite]

After reading mosts of this thread, I have to point out that the goal here is not to cover the most rooms with the least access points, but to deploy a robust network that will be mindful of users versus throughput.

The survey will tell you how big of a cell you can get at any different power level. Using a very high gain antenna (anything over 9dBi) to accomplish what your trying to accomplish is opening up a whole new set of problems.

It would BEHOOVE you to design a system with small, load balanced cells. That way the entire hotel is not trying to associate to any one AP.

My advise to you at this moment is SUBCONTRACT!

Yes it is a bit more involved than it appears, Please do a valid, documentable spectrum analysis with a real analyser and in your case Small Cells, lower power, diverse antennas, separate VLAN.



That is the nutshell recommendation. Heed this advise or you will soon find your nuts in a vise!


Naturally, this is just my opinion and I could be wrong....

[ExpertWitness]

Spiderbite is right. The best thing to do is to CONTRACT your first job. It sounds like you are searching for all the answers in a short time. I spent a year researching before getting into the mix... even after that, hotels are interesting partners to have.

[M/Q]

I wanted to inject a thought as well, I have not had the pleasure of this type of job, maybe don't want to either 8-).

But I always make sure when I am working on a contract with a company to get their opinion on what they consider adequate roaming capabilities along with all the other requirements. I have noticed that it has not been mentioned in this thread.

a13088 started to talk about it with the mention of an access controller. I believe an enterprise wireless gateway is what was being talked about. It would be a big expensive part of the puzzle and very neccessary if roaming is required as well as management features. You are going to have alot of AP's that need to talk to each other and be controlled somehow.

Maybe it has been factored in already, if so I apologize for re-hashing it.

[keenanj]

You had better look at 200mW access points they have many times the power of Linksys products. One access point should cover at least 9x more area with the correct antenna. Snmp managment is also important for hotel wifi setups to monitor and controll access. You access points should have the hide clients traffic feature this is like each wireless client having his own switch port.