Measuring WLAN performance for systematic network planning: Case study

Efficient management of a wireless local area network is one of the goals set by faculty of information science and technology (FTSM) UKM, in order to provide wireless network connection to its staffs, students and visitors. An investigation was conducted to measure the signal strength and overlaps in order to ascertain the performance and dimension measures of the current wireless network and its future requirement. The existing area under study covers six buildings inclusive of a lecture theatre and the experiments were done on several different days and time slots. A comparison of the network performance was also measured by taking into accounts the number of connected users at any one time. The results from the research shows that wireless access points can be more efficiently located in strategic places for continuous near excellent connectivity and also allows for more effective systematic planning and placement of access points in the future expansion of the network.