Setting up WiFi for work, Need some tips.

[shoju]

Ok Lurkers,

My business is coming into the digital age, slowly, but surely. We are looking to add wireless for our departments, to help make getting stuff in, checked in, and on the floor faster.

Here's the problem. This is an OLD building.

So, I'm hoping someone here can recommend me the following:

Good, Wireless Router. Fairly secure, but doesn't need to be sonicwall type. Just something that I can lock down some stuff on, would be nice.

And then, I need help. What do you use to boost the signal?

Do I just need some of these? Is there a better brand out there?

And how many of those can I use together? I'm probably going to need.

Service Counter Area
Blade Room
Maintenance
Auto
Tires
Military
Housewares

7? of them, just to make sure I'm getting around all of the walls / concrete/ rebar / blast doors / etc... this place is an old factory that made Military Pieces and parts, not limited to can openers, and M16 Magazines / Parts, so i have some serious "stuff" in my way.

Also, woudl those just "work" with an existing Sonic Wall Wireless Network? I'm curious if I can bypass purchasing another router, and just use what I have in the SOnicWall, and make it all flow. It would certainly make my life a lot easier if that were the case.

[kandrathe]

First, you should make a map of the layout, and describe the requirements for coverage. Mostly, where people need wireless coverage, and at what speed. I would choose a standard enterprise level model (as a kicking off point), like HP 425 802.11n Dual Radio Access Point Series -- look at the specs and see what it would take. Then, make a budget. You should have a one time cost, then some idea of yearly maintenance (replacement of failed hardware, time to upgrade firmware, administration, and such). Once the financial people at your work agree to fund it, then you execute the plans you've prepared in advance. At my work we have over a hundred WAP's, of varying ranges and bandwidths depending on locations (e.g. the dining area required higher range, and higher throughput, thus more expensive devices).

This will trim the options, and whether you need to find WAP's compatible with your current switch, or if you can build an integrated solution (e.g. add a HP MSM Controller to your network rack). Then, I'd also check with a professional installer in the area. Running cable and adding the WAP's to rooms seems like a DUI worthy job, but I've found that the pro's are worth the one time cost to get it in right and neat.

[shoju]

Well, I have the layout map. Which is the biggest problem, thanks to the building's walls and structure.
My Budget, was less than 1500 to add the repeaters + cable + tablets
I ended up going with a nice repeater that New Egg had on sale after consulting with Frag on the phone, as my boss came to me and said "we need to get these purchased today."
I also picked myself a new work keyboard, which should make my life much easier with extra macro keys to make things like Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Illustrator, Turbo Lister, Filezilla, phpmyadmin, and the like easier to use with recordable macros, and easy retrieval.

The cable is something I will be running, The install is something that I will be doing. The setup after that, will be handled by our Dell Tech, who when I called said that everything should continue to run fine, and that adding the tablets should be a 60 minute process.

Thank God I was able to get them to pre-load the security software I wanted to shut down a lot of things.