WiFi Everywhere

I was recently asked to look at the WiFi network at a friends work, and give him a hand moving the server software to a new computer. In the process we upgraded the firmware on all the access points, and also installed the latest and greatest version of the server software. There were a few minor issues in getting this done, but basically it was all good.

I should mention that this organization has something like 15 Access Points split between two communities and several buildings. Just how many is open to debate since some are technically interconnected, and some of the access points are there more to split traffic to fix perceived problems. This organization of something like 100 people now routinely gets over 30 users using the WiFi at any time, and at times gets a lot more than that. Even 18 months back, they did not expect to see so much wireless, or in fact to need so much wireless. And this is not even in a big city. It is actually a fairly small community.

As a WiFi professional, looking at the admin console the thing that struck me was the sheer number of devices that can go into low power mode these days. To be honest, WiFi is a power hog, not designed for battery powered devices. To cope with this, there is now a standard that permits Access Points to store packets for battery powered devices, allowing the sender to believe that the packet got through, whilst delaying delivery maybe five seconds when the mobile device checks to see if there is any traffic for it.

Even how it checks is rather cool. It has organised with the Access Point exactly what time the transmission should be made, and will wake up just in time to listen for it, saving battery life.

Probably what is more instructive was the new feature within the Access Point to locate rogue Access Points. These are Access Points that were not installed by IT, or if they were, have been forgotten about or are in a piece of equipment. In the space of under a day, we detected 49 Access Points within range. Just looking through the list I was shocked. I saw two multi-function printers that ran open Access Points and had the potential to route traffic back onto the organizations network. I also saw a NetGear Router that I could only be inside the building given where it was detected, and was probably there as a result of an old project that has since been forgotten about. Then there are the numerous mobile devices operating as Access Points. Etc.

Even discounting the mobile devices, there are probably 30 WiFi networks within range. Based on these numbers, I seem to believe that WiFi is Everywhere!