Wireless site surveys are critical to the successful implementation of a wireless LAN. There are as many ways to perform a wireless site survey as there are differing environments and businesses. As the person performing the survey, you must be able to creatively address all the unique issues of the business and/or environment while staying within the best practices of the wireless technology. This is not always an easy task. As you have seen in previous sections, wireless may not be the answer to your business needs, or the cost to work around some business issue may outweigh the practicality of the installation. You will have to be knowledgeable on the wireless equipment you are installing and the wired equipment with which you may be interfacing, the physical environment, the application considerations and the structural environment.

A site survey performed by you or a certified wireless professional, will verify the feasibility of the initial (rough) design in the face of obstacles such as wired connectivity limitations, radio hazards, and application requirements. The survey will help you determine the number of APs needed throughout a facility to provide the desired coverage, and it will determine the placement of those APs, detailing the necessary information for placement. Point-to-point surveys will also provide you with detailed information for placement of both the bridge units and antennas as well as determine feasibility of the link desired. With the information gathered from a site survey, a site survey report can...