students per AP in residence halls

Message from reb@ncsu.edu

I was wondering what other schools have for a ratio of students to AP's in the residence halls, either definitely or approximately? If you have such a number, how do you count dual-band AP's? They're doing more than a 2.4GHz AP, but not quite as much as two AP's. Then one last related question... Would anyone know their relative mix of 2.4GHz vs. 5GHz connections in residence halls? Thanks. ---------------------------------------------------------- Tom O'Donnell Senior Manager of Network and Server Systems Information Technology Services University of Maine at Farmington (207) 778-7336 ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

We attempt to base it on the results of signal and service requirement moduling. This is because of major differences in the construction of buildings.  We are currently using ekahau to try and predict and plan that.

I say attempt because we often have to make do with funds business people decided we would need for a building not what the data. If you can avoid this,  it dramatically increases helpdesk calls and complaints.

Ben Parker
Network engineer
University of Mount Union

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Message from reb@ncsu.edu

We are a small K-12 school with 100 dorm students.  We have three APs in/near the dorms, each AP is capable of handling 250 users.  We have found that if a user is too close to an AP it causes major slowdowns for the user and having APs too near each other causes weird connection problems as well..  I am curious, wouldn’t one AP per room cause all kinds of interference?

 

We are using Ruckus.

 

Thanks,

Bob Williamson
Network Administrator
Annie Wright Schools | 827 N Tacoma Ave, Tacoma, WA 98403 | www.aw.org
D: 253.272.2216 | F: 253.572.3616 | Bob_Williamson@aw.org

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I was wondering what other schools have for a ratio of students to AP's in the residence halls, either definitely or approximately? If you have such a number, how do you count dual-band AP's?  They're doing more than a 2.4GHz AP, but not quite as much as two AP's. Then one last related question... Would anyone know their relative mix of 2.4GHz vs. 5GHz connections in residence halls? Thanks. ---------------------------------------------------------- Tom O'Donnell Senior Manager of Network and Server Systems Information Technology Services University of Maine at Farmington (207) 778-7336 ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

In the last dorm we built (13 stories, typical university construction), we had to put the APs in the hallways due to non-accessible ceilings in the rooms (hard pan bottom of the floor above forms the room ceilings). We asked early during the design phase for something in/on the ceiling that we could mount to, but were denied due to cost. No conduit or other exposed wiring is allowed to allow us use our preferred mounting (in the rooms). So, now we have dorm that holds just under 1,000 students with 134 APs. Just took a quick look and the max number of clients that any AP has is 13, the fewest is 0, and the midpoint is 5. Four through six clients/AP makes up about 80% of the usage. We have had no complaints since it opened this past fall. Max clients for this group of APs over the last 3 days (the students started classes on WED) was 1,091 with an average of 754. Bandwidth usage max was 36.5 Mbps in and 192.2 Mbps out with average usage at 6.7 bps in and 67.8 Mbps out. For the complete Fall semester these numbers are: Clients: Max 1,286 & Avg 855, Inbound bandwidth: Max 69 Mbps & Avg 16.7 Mbps, and Outbound bandwidth: Max 303.7 Mbps & Avg 116.6 Mbps. Based on these figures, some students haven't fired up all their new toys just yet since we are running below the fall numbers and I'm sure that many students got new things to play with over the Christmas break. APs are Cisco 1142s using WiSM2 controllers. APs are spaced at 35' down the center of the corridors. The building is shaped like a box with a hollow core and corridors all the way around the building. Rooms are on both sides of the corridors (so, some have a view out to the world and others have a view into the center courtyard. -jcw ------------------------------------- John Watters    UA: OIT  205-348-3992

Tom,

I just redesigned our ResNet wireless. In the planning I figured each student would have three devices (which is all we allow) on the wireless, or about 12 students per device. The APs we use are dual band, and I'm seeing about 20% usage of 5 GHz, which is up a little bit from last year. I believe the newer HT WiFi technologies are focused on 5 GHz, so I wouldn't be surprised to see more device 5 GHz capability in the near future. Heath Barnhart, CCNA ITS Network Administrator Washburn University Topeka, KS On 01/11/2013 08:50 AM, Tom O'Donnell wrote: > I was wondering what other schools have for a ratio of students to > AP's in the residence halls, either definitely or approximately? > > If you have such a number, how do you count dual-band AP's? They're > doing more than a 2.4GHz AP, but not quite as much as two AP's. > > Then one last related question... Would anyone know their relative mix > of 2.4GHz vs. 5GHz connections in residence halls? > > Thanks. > > ---------------------------------------------------------- > Tom O'Donnell > Senior Manager of Network and Server Systems > Information Technology Services > University of Maine at Farmington > (207) 778-7336 > > ********** > Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. > ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Depending on where people gather on campus we do see 5 GHz use that can flirt with 45% or so. But typical for the residences is around 30% for us on 5 GHz. - Lee Badman

Message from resisc@rit.edu

Message from frnkblk@iname.com

I've been moving into the rooms.  Often there is duct work in the halls and I have had some issues with students tampering with APs, mostly just unplugging them but one was destroyed.  The unplugging is annoying though.

I just sacrifice one of the room ports.  So far nobody has complained. 

I wanted them in the halls initially so I could service them but I just don't need to do that very often.  It makes more sense to have killer signal in the rooms and ok signal in the hallways than the other way around. 

I use a zig zag pattern per floor and I alternate the zig with the zag per floor.  Surprisingly, I see very good coverage through the floors. 

John Kaftan
IT Infrastructure Manager
Utica College

We've had this issue and are looking at the feasibility and cost of moving the AP's into the rooms.  We initially started with a coverage model and not a AP per Student model. Now we're moving more to the per student model, but haven't determined what the numbers are going to look like.

As for hotels, all the ones I've been in recently that have wifi have an AP in each room.

drob

Hi Tom.

The issue we've had is not one of density but one of coverage; in some site surveys we'e conducted recently in our residential spaces, we are finding that one AP might cover only a small amount of students, say, 6-12 reliably.

The challenges have been that our residential halls are old, double-brick with all sorts of reinforcement. We are site surveying for 2.4GHz - we can't justify the cost of a high density deployment to support 5GHz everywhere.

I have also noticed that HP produce a small active wall-outlet switch+AP which is PoE powered.  It is b/g/n 2.4GHz-only (sigh) and is aimed at the hospitality industry.

Where are people placing their APs?  We currently place them in the corridor, however our challenge has been that the APs see each other and RRM wants to drop the power levels.  We also run into issues if we have more than three APs in direct line of sight.

I'm curious - how do hotels deal with this problem?  They have similar construction and requirements.

Cheers,

Tristan

Message from mrdorshimer@ship.edu

Message from mrdorshimer@ship.edu