1 AP per how many rooms?

[BobY777]

I have a question of people that have done a lot of hotel WiFi installations.

What is the maximum, minimum, and average number of rooms that you have seen an access point cover in hotel situations?

Reason I ask is I did a survey to three hotels recently and have found that in one hotel I can do 4 rooms per AP. The 2nd hotel I can do 5 rooms per AP. And in the 3rd hotel I can do about 6 rooms per AP. All using the same AP and antenna.

That leads me to think that other WiFi hotel installers may h ave run across the same numbers I have.

Did you?

The one hotel I looked at has 3 floors and 103 rooms. My survey says it will take 25 access points to cover it properly with good coverage everywhere, including the lobby.

I thought it would be good for me and the other viewers here to see what the results were for other installers.

Thanks

[Uncle Ken]

I imagine hotels, like other buildings, come in a variety of shapes, sizes and construction materials. Add to this the variables of contents, access point brands and locations, performance goals, antennas, rf background noise, etc. and I think you'll see that the average number of rooms per access point will vary widely from installation to installation. I have seen access points cover as little as 900 sq ft and as much as 5000 sq ft. Sure, I could calculate an average, but it would almost always be wrong for any given building.

[wifihead]

Been there and done that. Your are correct in doing the survey and tests are right on based on concrete and steel, but 1) too much wire ala labor costs and 2) way to many points of potential problems to deal with. It will work because most folks do this for while and then....... they have to find a better solution. Which is attics, antennas, power and then fill the holes with a few APs. Common areas aside you have to put as much legal power with amps that are receive sensitive and the best antennas you can get with good known patterns. Hope this helps and best of luck.:)

[BobY777]

Thank you Uncle Ken and wifihead.

I found out about the Engenius AP 3 Plus. It has very good transmit power and receive sensitivity compared to the SOHO APs.

That can cover more area then the APs I was initially testing with.

But I heard that some people use a 1 watt (30 dBm) amps plus a 5.5 dBi antenna to get near the FCC legal limit. I heard one or two of those can cover a whole hotel floor compared to the lower power SOHO units.

I guess that amplifier can help any AP out...even if it starts out with lower power.

Thanks for your responses.

[oshea85]

If your hotel is like most, the rooms are on either side of long corridors. The signal sails laterally down the hallways, up and down through the floors of the building, and penetrates more open space than actual rooms?

If so, you need to be careful about using Tx power to overcome poor AP range. You can easily start creating co-channel interference issues for yourself, which are not readily apparent until the networks starts getting significant usage. Probably better off using a 9dBi patch to shoot the corridor (you'll get more room coverage, and help focus your beam away from where it's not wanted).