The Missing Feature in WiFi Solutions: Performance Testing

In general, they are mainly concerned about two factors when it comes to their wireless network: coverage and performance. There are many other factors that they should probably be concerned about, but these are the two factors that tend to keep users off their back if they are both taken care of.Verifying WiFi coverage for an average IT administrator is generally very simple. They simply do a Google search download a tool such as Metageek's inSSIDer and visit the area where users are complaining. Even if they don't manage to use dedicated tool such as inSSIDer, they will generally check the 'number of bars' displayed on a wireless client to get an idea of signal strength in an area. They will very quickly be able to determine if they have a coverage issue by verifying signal levels around a particular area.(Note: this isn't the only factor to consider, there may be other issues such as non-WiFi interference from security cameras, microwave ovens etc., but that's a discussion for another day). However, once coverage has been verified, then comes the more challenging issue of testing performance over the wireless network. The number one way I tend to see end users testing their WiFi network (especially on tablet or smartphone devices) is to fire up an app such as SpeedTest.net and verify the throughput to the Internet. Whilst this approach is easy to get a quick assessment of how throughout might look, there are a lot of holes in this approach, not least because it relies on both the bandwidth and current utilization of your Internet pipe. In many organizations, the results vary based on time of day (i.e. number of users on the Internet). It also provides no differentiation between the various components that the test data may traverse (i.e. wireless, wired and Internet).There are several options that could be deployed by IT administrators, such as setting up an iPerf server somewhere on the network. They could then grab a copy of iPerf off the iTunes store or the Play store (Android) to do some throughput testing. However, I generally never see anyone using this approach, (I'm guessing as most folks don't have the time, knowledge or inclination to do it...).

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