Wireless in our Warehouse

[Ogi]

Hi,

I've got a requirement for putting wireless into our office/warehouse so that I can use Cisco 7921 Wireless IP Phones (about 3/4 phones).

I've got a Cat 6 cabled office split into private offices within the warehouse building, with false ceilings and a large open area above all the offices.

I'm looking for a powerful wireless device that has external arials that could be placed high up in the roofing to give good coverage.

The total square footage is 30,000 with 8,000 being office space built from breeze block, so not especially thick walls!

Any recomendations?

 

[cajuntank]

To do this correctly, you really need to have a wireless site survey done. Just from the numbers you gave, in perfect world scenario, you would only need 1 AP and a 5.2dbi omni antenna since you probably have something like a 175'x175' area. Now, in the real world, with other pieces of equipment in your warehouse, with the building being metal, with structures in the way, etc... A wireless survey with an AP and a wifi finder will give you or the vendor you deal with some idea of the way signal plays in your building so you or they can make the determination of signal strength, area coverage and overlap. This will give you a truer idea of how many AP(s) are actually needed, cabling needs to get to those AP(s), or AP type if this needs to be more of a mesh solution.

 

[sluggo140]

I can tell you from experience you are probably going to need 2 or 3 wireless access points depending on how the material in the warehouse is stacked. We use Cisco 1240 Ag access points with the omni 2.5dbi antenna and they work really well. The one caveat is that if you don't utilize power over ethernet you are going to need an electrician to wire 110v up there. As Cajuntank said, a wireless site survey is also a good idea, those guys usually know what they are doing and how to get it done on the cheap. Also for the 7921 you will need to have different vlans setup on the wireless to segment the voice and data traffic. Feel free to email me if if you have any other questions, we just set up a second warehouse about a month ago.

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