Wireless Setup

I have a couple questions about setting up my wirelessnetwork with the AP one’s. I’ve looked at the manuals but they don’taddress my questions.

  1.   Whatis the suggested physical spacing for the AP Ones? 
    
  2.   CanI have all 5 of my APs use the same SSID?
    
  3.   SinceI am planning on using InControl for my management, how does it connect to theAPs if they are behind a firewall with private IPs?
    
  4.   Iwant to be able to roll out the same config ( I think) to all the APs, but Iwant to use static IPs, which wouldn’t seem to work. 
    

I think that covers most of my concerns. Thanks in advance.

Please see the answers below.

> 1. What is the suggested physical spacing for the AP Ones?

Pepwave AP One has maximum transmit power (under FCC guideline) of 500mW which is extremely powerful compared to solutions from other vendors. So the coverage area is much wider with our solution. At the same time, please be noted that it can become smaller than you expect depending on the environments. Especially, obstacles such as metal, brick and concrete walls can be significant barriers and create signal propagation issues, which applies to any access points from other vendors as well.

Normally we recommend customers try a couple of AP Ones instead of trying dozens of them at first to see if they cover the areas where you need WiFi signals. When you see some gaps where you don’t receive signals, then you can add another AP One later.

We have a “WiFi Planning Tool” on our website. This should help you plan and lay out your AP Ones in your environments.

http://www.peplink.com/wifi-planning-tool/

(Laying out multiple wireless access points (from any vendors) in general is one of the big challenges for installers. It sometimes takes extensive testing and careful consideration of the layout of the access points. Also access point layout may have to be changed after the installation in order to remedy coverage gaps.)

> 2. Can I have all 5 of my APs use the same SSID?

Yes, you can. This way, your WiFi capable devices can roam from one AP One to another. You will have to make sure that the encryption method is identical for each AP One with the same key and they are all in bridge mode for seamless roaming. Also we recommend that the channels are not overlapping one another to avoid any interference unless they are using WDS.

> 3. Since I am planning on using InControl for my management, how does it connect to the APs if they are behind a firewall with private IPs?

You will have to set up a port forwarding rule in the router so that you can use the public IP of the router to get to the GUI of the AP One. When you have multiple APs, then you will have to assign a different port number for each AP One.

> 4. I want to be able to roll out the same config ( I think) to all the APs, but I want to use static IPs, which wouldn’t seem to work.

If you have one original configuration profile, you can clone it to create another profile and change only the static IP portion of the new profile. Then you can apply it to another AP One.