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WiFi Deployment: Your Complete Guide to a Strong Signal

In this connected day and age, knowing how to perform a WiFi deployment is a useful skill to have, and mastering it is not nearly as difficult as it may seem — at least not with the help of the articles published on the NetSpot blog.
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What Is a WiFi Deployment?

The term WiFi deployment encapsulates multiple activities that must be performed for an area to be covered with a strong WiFi signal. These activities include:

  • Initial planning
  • Installation and configuration
  • Post-deployment testing

WiFi deployments are performed every day by regular home users and professional network administrators, often with the help of WiFi analysis and deployment software applications.

How to Design a WiFi Network?

The difference between a correctly designed WiFi network and an incorrectly designed one in terms of performance, signal strength, and even security can be massive.

Here are some basic WiFi design best practices you should always follow:

  1. Determine the size of the area you want to cover: Without knowing the size of the area you want to cover, you can’t reliably determine how many access points will be needed.
Determine the size of the area you want to cover
  1. Account for physical obstacles: Wireless signals can be absorbed by various physical obstacles, from walls to large furniture, and you need to account for them during the WiFi network design stage.
Account for physical obstacles
  1. Overestimate the number of connected devices: The number of WiFi devices is increasing at a steep rate, so it’s always better to overestimate the number of clients that will connect to the network at the same time.
Overestimate the number of connected devices
  1. Choose the right WiFi network type: In some situations, a single powerful WiFi router is the best solution, while other situations may call for a mesh WiFi setup.
Choose the right WiFi network type
  1. Survey the wireless environment: A WiFi survey can tell you a lot of useful information about other networks present in the area of deployment, and you can also use it to optimize the placement of individual access points.
WiFi survey

How to Deploy a WiFi Network?

Now that you know what WiFi deployment is and are familiar with the most important WiFi design best practices, we can take a closer look at the three main WiFi deployment stages we’ve introduced earlier in this WiFi deployment guide.

Initial Planning

It’s one thing to deploy WiFi in a small apartment, and it’s a different game entirely to wirelessly connect computers, laptops, and smartphones used by the employees of a large business with offices spanning multiple floors. That’s why every WiFi deployment should begin with requirements gathering and planning. When planning a WiFi deployment, it’s best to take things slow and proceed methodically to ensure the highest possible accuracy of gathered data.

Installation and Configuration

Once it’s clear how many WiFi access points are needed and where they should be located, it’s time to deploy and configure them. Modern routers operate multiple WiFi frequency bands and all kinds of performance-enhancing features, and it’s important to correctly take advantage of them to achieve the best speeds and coverage possible.

Post-Deployment Testing

The performance of a WiFi network can be negatively affected by bursts in demand, signal interference, and other factors, so it’s paramount to periodically perform post-deployment testing and use the results to optimize the network. Make sure to test at different times of the day to account for day and night usage fluctuations.

How to Deploy a WiFi Network at Home?

Deploying WiFi for home use isn’t that different from deploying WiFi for enterprise use. You need to:

  • Understand your home layout
Understand your home layout
  • Know the approximate number of connected devices
Know the approximate number of connected devices
  • Have a good understanding of the surrounding wireless environment

Equipped with this information, you should find it easy to purchase a suitable WiFi router, connect it to the modem provided by your internet service provider, and configure it to achieve the best performance possible.

Then, you can connect your client devices and, hopefully, enjoy fast and stable internet access in every room of your home. That’s how easy it is to learn how to set up WiFi at home.

How to Set Up a WiFi Router?

These days, anyone can learn how to set up a WiFi router because modern routers are designed to be nearly plug and play. Here’s what you typically need to do:

  1. Find a suitable place for your WiFi router.
Find a suitable place for your WiFi router
  1. Plug in the power cable and connect the router with your modem using an Ethernet cable.
Connect the router with your modem
  1. Log in to the router’s admin interface.
Log in to the router’s admin interface
  1. Enable WiFi connectivity and configure all necessary settings.
Internet connected — settings
  1. Connect your client devices to the new WiFi network.
Internet connected — Connected client

Some router manufacturers make everything even easier by providing companion smartphone apps.

What Is Guest WiFi and How to Set It Up?

Knowing how to set up a guest WiFi allows you to separate your own personal devices from those used by your friends and other guests. This can greatly increase your security because it prevents malware on an infected smartphone or laptop of a guest from infecting your devices.

Here’s how to set up a guest WiFi network:

  1. Log in to your router’s admin interface by entering its IP address (such as 192.168.0.1, 192.168.1.1, 192.168.2.1, or 192.168.1.100) in your web browser or using a companion smartphone app.
192.168. 0.1
  1. Navigate to the wireless settings menu.
Navigate to the wireless settings menu
  1. Enable the WiFi guest network option.
Enable the WiFi guest network option
  1. Protect the guest network using a strong password.
Using a strong password
  1. Save your settings.
Save your settings

How to Optimize WiFi for Smart Home Devices?

It’s estimated that over 130 million households are home to at least one smart speaker, and that’s just one specific type of smart home devices. What all smart home devices have in common is the need for strong and stable WiFi internet access, but making WiFi smart home-ready can be a challenge.

One way to overcome it is to use a tool like NetSpot, which combines WiFi speed checker, WiFi signal checker, and WiFi security checker to make it easy to diagnose and fix all kinds of WiFi-related issues.

For example, you can use NetSpot to effortlessly detect WiFi signal interference caused by nearby networks:

  1. Download and install NetSpot.
  1. Launch the application and give it a short while to collect information about nearby WiFi networks.
NetSpot
  1. Select networks with a strong signal level and click the Details button.
Select networks with a strong signal level
  1. Switch to the Channels 2.4 GHz tab to clearly see which channels in the 2.4 GHz band are used the most.
Switch to the Channels 2.4 GHz
  1. Switch to the Channels 5 GHz tab to clearly see which channels in the 5 GHz band are used the most.

You can then configure your WiFi router to use a different channel to avoid signal interference.

Summary

You don’t need to be a pro to deploy a WiFi network like one. All you need is to follow our WiFi deployment guides and take advantage of wireless analysis tools like NetSpot. Your new WiFi network will be up and running in no time, and you’ll be enjoying a fast and stable connection to the internet.

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FAQ

What is wireless network design?

Wireless network design is the process of designing a WiFi network and making the necessary considerations to ensure its satisfactory performance.

How do I design WiFi coverage?

To ensure strong WiFi coverage, you need to consider the size of the area you want to cover and the number of connected clients. You should also account for physical obstacles and interference caused by nearby networks.

How do I set up a home guest network?

Most modern routers make it possible to set up a home guest network just by clicking a single checkbox in the wireless settings section in the admin panel.

What is home smart WiFi?

Smart WiFi combines a traditional WiFi router with a smart home hub, making it easy to wirelessly connect all kinds of smart home devices, from lightbulbs dimmable using a smartphone app to connected appliances.

Have more questions?
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Read next in All about Wi-Fi

If you want to dive deeper into this Wi-Fi thing, check out the following articles about Wi-Fi security, the best apps for wireless networking, inflight WiFi, etc.
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