5 Steps for Perfect Wifi Coverage in a Warehouse Building

Warehouse Wi-fi is Difficult

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Concrete, steel beams, metal roofing & high voltage wiring everywhere.

We are Victel Enterprise Wifi & Security Cameras out of the Greater Los Angeles area, and we'd love to help you by selecting and installing the best value, and highest performing enterprise wifi for your warehouse building.  Please read through this approach and know that it is meant to simply show you how we would approach this problem (and we're pretty much the experts).

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We help Businesses Large & Small Across the United States

Before we dive into the 5 steps, we'd also like you to know that we install security systems, enterprise wifi, and help with structured cabling for very large projects or simple small businesses.  No matter what your business needs, contact us and we'll help you get things setup properly.

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5 Steps to Perfect Wireless Network Coverage in a Warehouse Building:

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Step #1: WiFi survey

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We need to conduct a WiFi survey to learn what radio spectrum is being used and perhaps being over-populated. This way, we learn what spectrum we can work with and how to best design the layout of your access points in your business.

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Step #2: Not overestimating the type of business operation

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It’s important to know whether a business is a simple office building, warehouse selling pillows, or logistic center shipping heavy furniture. There’s a difference with how WiFi travels through objects. The denser the object, the less likely WiFi signals will travel through it. From a technical perspective it is always better to have more WiFi APs  at lower strength than less WiFi APs at higher strength. You never want too few WiFi APs at low strength or too many APs at high strength.

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Step #3: Using quality cables

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The networking switch and the APs are connected via ethernet cables. The ethernet cables need to be of high quality so that the networking switch can “negotiate” the best speed. You might notice the term 10/100/1000 MBPS on networking equipment. It is to indicate that the device can support up to those speeds. If the cable isn’t good enough to support 1000 MBPS, then the networking switch will auto-negotiate to a lower speed than the cable can support. That is why quality cables are important.

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Step #4: Using expert installation practice

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Many installers don’t know this, but installing data communication cables like ethernet next to electrical cables will cause bad interference with your ethernet cables. You never want to install ethernet cables parallel to electrical cables. If it needs to come in contact, do so at a perpendicular angle to decrease interference. We see many untrained installers simply ziptieing ethernet cables next to power cables. That’s a big no-no. Our technicians are individually trained and certified to provide best practices when installing cables for WiFi. We use proper materials and take time to setup any raceways that the cable will be utilizing.

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Step #5: Properly Configuring APs

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Knowledge obtained from the initial WiFi survey helps configure the APs to the right setting. Making sure that channel utilization is properly accessed. Channel tuning (don’t use overcrowded channels), power tuning (make sure to emit enough power that it’s not overcrowding the channel on the other side of the building), Beacon (helps kick out devices that might otherwise impede the performance of the AP), minimum RSSI (disconnects device when the signal strength becomes lower than set), band steering, airtime fairness, etc. Then do another site survey and determine if there’s any settings that might still need to be tweaked.