Wi-Fi apps for Blackberry?

tdean

do you guys know of any Blackberry apps that will allow me to test Wi-Fi signal strength etc? My buddy has Droid and he just downloaded a really cool one...

SteveO86

BlackBerries have a built in Site survey tool and Wi-Fi Diagnostics tool. (Under manage connections -> Wi-Fi Options -> hit Menu Key -> Wi-Fi Tools)

The Site Survey just give SSID name, MAC, Security Type, Channel and RSSI

But I have not heard of any 3rd party tool for the BlackBerry at all.

tdean

ok, thanks Steve. thats a drag. i may try and get Air Magnet for my laptop or something.

SteveO86

Is your goal site survey or Spectrum Analysis?

InSSIDer is a free tool to find Wi-Fi networks. Their is also Wi-Spy DBx for Spectrum Analysis. Which is a fairly cheap spectrum analyzer.

tdean

SteveO86 wrote: »

Is your goal site survey or Spectrum Analysis?

InSSIDer is a free tool to find Wi-Fi networks. Their is also Wi-Spy DBx for Spectrum Analysis. Which is a fairly cheap spectrum analyzer.

thanks again Steve, just looked at that Wi-Spy stuff. pretty cool. i think im looking more spectrum analysis since we have only the one WLC and 3 AP's. i just want to see how far they are reaching etc.

any experience wihthe 2106 web interface? i'm having trouble applying my studies to the real world! lol. i know i am supposed to seperate "N" from "G", but under "Wireless" i see a/n and b/g/n the top running on channel 161 and the bottom 1, 6 and 11. should i tune off "N" support on one? confused.

SteveO86

tdean wrote: »

thanks again Steve, just looked at that Wi-Spy stuff. pretty cool. i think im looking more spectrum analysis since we have only the one WLC and 3 AP's. i just want to see how far they are reaching etc.

any experience wihthe 2106 web interface? i'm having trouble applying my studies to the real world! lol. i know i am supposed to seperate "N" from "G", but under "Wireless" i see a/n and b/g/n the top running on channel 161 and the bottom 1, 6 and 11. should i tune off "N" support on one? confused.

You should be ok.

a/n is at the 5 GHz frequency.
b/g/n is at the 2.4 GHz frequency.

802.11n works at both frequencies, you typically get better performance when you utilize 802.11n in the 5 GHz frequency because you can bond the channels making them 40 MHz wide (compared to 20 MHz) which provides double the sub-carriers. 802.11n with 40 MHz wide channels in the 5 GHz is where you start to see speed of 300+ Mbps, as long as the client cards are new enough.

They will not interference with each other. It would also depend on what kind of AP's you have (Whether they are dual band or not).

CCNA: Wireless covers Cisco stuff (and not enough about RF and 802.11 in my opinion) and after working with the WLC and LWAPs for a while you'll get the hang of it real quick. You might want to look at the CWNA book from CWNP, a lot of useful in their for 802.11 and RF

tdean

ok, gotcha. maybe i'll go in and bond those so i get the 40mhz. doesnt matter too much b/c the 2106 only has 100mg ports. heres a stupid question, right now i just have it set up via the mgt interface/port1. this is just for some tutoring we have on one of our apps this week. in the future, i'd want to run a cable to another port and add a new interface though, right?

SteveO86

Ideally yes, you would want client data/network setup on a dynamic interface and physical port. Then your management interface on a separate port/subnet or VLAN.

Keep in mind you do not want to perform channel bonding (making the channels 40 MHz wide) in the b/g/n 2.4 GHz frequency only in the a/n 5 GHz frequency.

tdean

ok, thats where i have been getting confused. when i am asked to select both primary and extension channels for the 40 channel width, is this where i should deselect channels 1, 6 and 11 b/c they are going to be used for "G"?

SteveO86

I wouldn't turn on 40 MHz for b/g/n it might cause too many problems.

What IOS version are you running on your WLC?

tdean

it looks like 6.0.199.4

what i mean is, should i exclude the "G" channels from the "N" range within the 802.11 a/n DCA?

SteveO86

tdean wrote: »

it looks like 6.0.199.4

what i mean is, should i exclude the "G" channels from the "N" range within the 802.11 a/n DCA?

The "g" channels should not even be listed under the 802.11a/n DCA page. (See my attachments)

802.11a/n -> RRM -> DCA - Should only list the channel associated with the 5 GHz range. Channels 36, 40, 44, 48, 52, 56, 60, 64, 149, 153, 157, 161

802.11b/g/n -> RRM -> DCA - Should only list channels associated with the 2.4 GHz range. Channels 1, 6, 11

Although I'm running on 7 I don't remember if 6 is different. (I had to many problems with 6 and jumped off as soon as 7 came out)

Here is a link for the WLC 6.0 Config Guide It's extremely long winded but it's got a lot of details in there.

For an environment with only 3 AP's you might want to assign the channels manually.

(P.S. I'm not posting the config guide to seem mean, but it's helped me out a great deal and I just wanted to make sure you had a copy.)

tdean

hehe, i didnt take it that way. I appreciate your help. i will look at that, i guess my studies didnt really help with the practical application of this stuff. i can tell you all about RF though!!

i attached a pic of exactly what im talking about....

SteveO86

tdean wrote: »

hehe, i didnt take it that way. I appreciate your help. i will look at that, i guess my studies didnt really help with the practical application of this stuff. i can tell you all about RF though!!

i attached a pic of exactly what im talking about....

Well that's interesting I don't have 4.9 GHz in any of my stuff.

The 4.9 GHz portion you have their not for 802.11g since g works at the 2.4 GHz range. I do believe the 4.9 GHz section you have there is for the backhaul communication of mesh AP's. If your not using mesh AP's then I would ignore that section.

The UNII-2extended provides another 11 non-overlapping channels for the 802.11a/n 5 GHz range.
UNII-2 Extended (5.470 to 5.725 GHz) Non-overlapping channels 100, 104, 108, 112, 116, 120, 124, 128, 132, 136, 140

With only 3 AP's you shouldn't need turn on the UNII-2extended chanels.

tdean

ok... now that we cleared that up! i used inssider to see what was running and both the G and N channels are working fine. for now, im only using the one AP. i want to think this through a bit more before adding the others. when i do, should i only use one channel one each? like 1 on the first, 6 on the second and 11 on the third? to avoid interference? im guessing it doesnt matter with N.

i really appreciate your help BTW.

SteveO86

tdean wrote: »

ok... now that we cleared that up! i used inssider to see what was running and both the G and N channels are working fine. for now, im only using the one AP. i want to think this through a bit more before adding the others. when i do, should i only use one channel one each? like 1 on the first, 6 on the second and 11 on the third? to avoid interference? im guessing it doesnt matter with N.

i really appreciate your help BTW.

Yes, that is exactly what you want to do one channel per AP (1, 6, 11). When you start adding more then three you will have to be more careful with channel re-use and pay closer attention to the RSSI and transmit power of the AP's.

Co-Channel and adjacent channel interference degrade WLAN performance no matter what 802.11 standard your using. RF is very susceptible to many different types of interference, it's best to avoid the simple things.