I’m incredibly grateful to AUC and Tony Gray for their invitation to Chris Dawe and I to present our workshop, Fundamentals of Wi-Fi: Physics Always Wins. While we’re not making our full slides available for this talk, we did want to provide some external-facing documentation for our talk that gives you some of the key materials that we used while making this talk.
How to Reach Us
Tom Bridge
Slack: tbridge
Github: tbridge
Chris Dawe
Slack: ctdawe
Books & Printed Material
Sometimes, you need to start with printed materials.
The Wireless LAN Professionals organization is the certifying authority for professional WLAN Engineers, and their mission includes training and certification. the CWNA 107 Study Guide (and the now discontinued Sybex volume for the 106 exam that preceded it) is an excellent resource to understanding much of the Wireless sphere.
Online Resources
General References:
WLAN Pros Resources Page (Includes WLPC Sessions)
Certified Wireless Network Professionals
The home of vendor-independent technical certification for Wi-Fi
Andrew von Nagy’s site is home to comprehensive discussion and analysis of developments in Wi-Fi technology. Andrew is also the creator of a Capacity Planning tool that will provide guidance on access point needs based on a description of your fleet.
Section 1: Wi-Fi and Radio Basics
Attenuation Values for Common Building Materials
History of 802.11 Specification, Justin Berg, George Mason University
Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil’s Patents
When George Antheil Met Hedy Lamarr
This piece was what unlocked the importance of OFDM to Wireless connectivity. Learning how it changed Wi-Fi forever helped me understand its importance.
Best 802.11ac Channel Map Ever
Choosing 802.11ac Channels in Australia
Section 2: Wi-Fi Basic Operations
Understanding 802.11 Management Frames
Explaining the Concept of a TXOP
Modulation & Coding Scheme Lookup Table
Section 3: Network Design
Aerohive High-Density Design Guide
Mike Albano’s Client Capabilities List
Understanding WLAN Capacity, Darrel Derosia, WLPC Phoenix 2017
Watch this video to gain a greater understanding what turns out to be a vast gulf between vendor hardware performance specs and real-world scenarios with a mixed client base.
Divergent Dynamics: Wi-Fi Design and Deployment Methodology
Understanding Airtime Utilization
Section 4: Apple-specific Design Concerns
Apple Deployment Documentation (Appendixes include WiFi Specs for iOS and macOS Devices)
iOS Deployment Guide
macOS Deployment Guide
Apple’s two deployment guides supply Apple’s general recommendations for Wi-Fi networks (which aren’t too far from ours, generally), as well as Wi-Fi specs for Apple’s devices. Oddly, the iPad specs list is currently badly broken.
Enterprise Best Practices for iOS Devices and Mac Computers on Cisco Wireless LAN
Apple Roaming Documents
Apple TechNote: macOS Roaming
Apple TechNote: iOS Roaming
Section 5: Tools & Software
Wi-Fi Explorer (Lite, Regular, Pro)
Metageek Channelyzer & Wi-Spy DBx
Section 6: Security
Podcast: Understanding the 4-way Handshake
Cannonball 