Today’s Healthcare Wireless LANS
Enterprise WLANS are becoming large, diverse, and becoming mission critical. WLANs are rapidly becoming a necessary part of the healthcare enterprise infrastructure.
What are the typical installation tools available today? They usually consist of one or more of the following: a. Laptops/PDAs with sniffers or RSSI measuring software b. Low cost spectrum analysis tools for interference detection and characterization c. Handheld PDA type devices such as YellowJacket from Berkeley Varitronics. This typically combines interference detection, spectrum analysis and scanning for existing WLANS and RSSI measurements in one package. d. Then finally software packages for propagation simulation and installation management. These have typically come from such companies as LANPlanner from Motorola and also supplied by Cisco Systems.
Today’s typical healthcare WLAN Deployment Process consists of the following steps:
Obtain floorplans and building details:
- Perform site survey with test APs
- Install actual WLAN equipment
- Perform walk-around, record RSSI
- Do basic single point traffic tests
- Generate completion report
What are the issues with Today’s Healthcare Wireless LAN Deployment Process?
Incomplete characterization
Measurements under ideal conditions > no traffic loading, low client density (usually 1 client), no client variety (just laptops).
Manual measurement process > snapshot of situation at one time
Unable to scale
Measurements with single laptops no representative of actual usage situations with hundreds of concurrent users.
Cannot distinguish between low density area versus high density areas.
Difficult or impossible to replicate
Cannot establish baselines or certify installed network
Focuses on RF; does not expose many real installation issues. Like underprovisioning, overprovisioning, misconfigurations.
The “new site survey” for healthcare will need the following capabilities:
The ability to analyze signal strength and interference levels in the environment
Generate real-world loads on installed network before live traffic starts
Measure actual performance under expected traffic loading
Perform traffic tests, capture issues, and compare results with baseline
Provide site specific optimization features: This will allow for the optimization of infrastructure parameters (APs and controllers) based on traffic measurements.
Ensure that security settings are correctly configured and that roaming acceleration features are enabled.
Validate and verify that advanced WLAN features (load balancing, transmit power control, automatic RF management, etc.), are set up and working properly
The WLAN infrastructure should be subject to actual real world traffic loads, and usage scenarios corresponding to the target deployments.
An application should be able to automatically assess and reports user QoE (Quality of Experience), based upon application specific metrics.
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With this new process, not only WLAN data, but voice, video and such real time applications such as WLAN patient monitoring will operate as intended in the confines of the healthcare enterprise.
