Hardware / Software To Test Network Capabilities?

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

To all the networking gurus that are a part of this community, what would I need in order to test if a conference center, meeting hall, hotel, etc. etc. has a good enough wireless network to handle X amount of people on their network?

I actually started a thread similar to this like a year ago, but I can no longer find it, and I figure some things have changed over the past year.

I do have this company from that search last year. Ixia, but I am not exactly sure what I would need from them based on my needs.

This is for my job. So budget is potentially a few $1000. Probably up to like $5000 if really needed. I would probably be in charge of running whatever the solution would be. Our IT department is currently saying they do not have anything they can do, so the more user friendly it can be, the better.

The Exact Need - Ideally I need whatever this would be to show up at a location, input the amount of users, input the amount of estimated bandwidth each user (or combined users) would be using, and then do an actual test that mimics those users actually being connected to the wireless network.

This would almost always be on iPads.

[+BudMan MVC]

Your on the right track there with the Ixia -- here is link on their site about their wifi performance/benchmarking testing.

http://www.ixiacom.com/solutions/network_test/enterprise/wireless/index.php

I would contact them with your needs and they should be able to provide you the hardware/tools to do on your own, or for you if that is what your after.

[sc302 Veteran]

Look at ixia.

There would be a few things that you need though, imo.

A wifi mapper to map your wifi access point and their saturation strength

Something like this

http://www.makeuseof...th-netspot-mac/

I would think that you would have to build the layout of the site/floor plan of the site, then you could map out the wireless signal in the areas. Then you need to understand saturation and how many access points needed to maintain x bandwidth as wifi is shared bandwidth every device connected takes away a percentage. Don't expect all devices connected to the access point to get 1/2 or even 1/3 of the speed available. You can do most with the tools available if you understand how wifi works, but I guess nothing is better than a piece of software telling you that you need x,y, or z. a calculator telling you that 2+2=4 is better than a person knowing and understanding that 2+2=4.