Re: Handheld bar code scanners

Hi Jeff,

1) Are vendors willing to come in and determine for you how many access points would be needed in your warehouse, at no cost?

No. A knowledgeable vendor might GUESS at the number you'd need... but to do it properly, a site survey should be conducted. This involves a technician coming in with test equipment and measuring the signal strength based on the number of APs, their locations, and the types of antennas used.

The result will be a diagram that shows where to put the access points, what types of antennas to use, what areas each antennas covers, and so forth.

I don't remember the exact cost of the site survey, but it really wasn't a big deal in the greater scheme of things. Especially if (like us) you have a refrigerated warehouse with big refrigeration machines that could interfere with the wireless coverage. The cost of bad wifi reception is much, much higher.

2) At COMMON, I attended a session expounding on the benefits of 'access ports' vs 'access points'. Access ports are simply disconnecting the antenna from the rest of the electronics in the access point. Several antennas can share an access port thereby lowering the cost. Anybody done or doing this? Makes a lot of sense to me.

Never heard of this. I know our access points each have two antennas, and they can be disconnected and replaced with more appropriate units to give the best coverage. But, I haven't heard of having a central access point that powers many antennas before...

BONUS: Is there a single word term to indicate wireless enabling of an area? Something like "wirelessification"? <g>

I usually hear the term "coverage" when discussing this with the wireless professionals. Of course, when you're in context, you can get by with just the word "coverage", but outside of context you might have to say "wifi coverage" or "wireless coverage" or something like that.