Wifi networking advanced tutorials

Anyone know of any advanced tutorials on wifi networking? I am a small business owner who has co-developed a product called ElderWatch that helps seniors in independent and assisteed living center better communicate with their extended families. Of course it is a networked product.

Many of the buildings we are likely going to encounter with installations will need to be retrofitted with a 802.11g infrastructure since each units system controller has a wifi adapter card. A typical building has 50-150 apartments and it is typically not cost effective to hardwire these buildings with cat5e to each of the WAP's. After a bit of research I found a company caller Firetide that makes a product that with 4 units at a minimum establishes a wireless mesh network to different parts of the building and to each of these nodes one or several WAP's can be hardwired to this node. The mesh network nodes are self configuring and healing and each has 4 RJ45 ports with POE that allows a WAP to be connected with one cat5e line. This is all well and good yet the areas I need further input on are the following:

1.) I understand I can have up to three non-overlapping channels for WAP's using channel 1,6 and 11. I have used this on many large home and small business applications and it works well. Since the mesh nodes uses one channel, I will say "1", this leaves me with channel 6 and 11 for the wap's. By judicious placement I can alternate the channels to attempt to keep same channels apart to mitigate any destructive interferance. Is there any instrument that can provide an empirical measurement of the signal strength at the fringes of each circle of coverage to determine where the next point should be to place another WAP? How much of an issue is it to have two wap's with overlapping coverage?

2.) To get better coverage, I can go with a WAP that has higher power, say 200-400mw yet the device, in my case, the ElderWatch system unit's wifi adaptor would be the weak link in the comm path. I would assume that each side would need to have some similar and matched transmitting power and receiver sensitivity. Is this true?

3.) I can see my application as no different to what many schools use. Does anyone out here in the forum have first hands experience in the design and topology of such a network used for retrofitting schools.?

any input would be appreciated. thanks.

Look here:

SmallNetBuilder - Home

Occasionally Tim answers general networking questions.

--- CHAS

Thanks for the link.

A simple search of the web (google) should reveal a number of documents on the basics of what you are doing. Most of your knowledge will come from actual experience as every single install is different regardless.

1. All nodes within your wireless mesh can be on the same channel. Most often however they are not, and for the most part this is due to a lack of understanding on how WIFI works with channel sharing.

2. Transmit power can be different and in some cases node output power is adjusted to suit the surrounding environment and other devices within the area as to reduce interference.

3. Yes

Regards

Fred