Wireless Standards References – Poster Series

Designing a high performing wireless network is not easy.

Especially, when the end goal is a network that provides high-performance coverage & capacity, and won’t need much troubleshooting and maintenance. This is even harder when you have limited time and budget to finish your Wi-Fi project within!

As an engineer, how many tables, cheat sheets, and references do you spend time looking up and using when designing your network? Ever find yourself looking up 20, 40, 80, 160 MHz channels, 802.11ac data rates, PoE types and power classes or 5 GHz U-NII bands and channels overview?

Do you ever find yourself spending too much time looking up reference information? The truth is, unless you have a phenomenal photographic memory or have mastered some mathematical conversion tricks, the moment will come when you will need to refer to something to check your data. Even the best wireless gurus or grandmasters of the universe, need a little reference now and then.

So what have we done about it?

Here at iBwave we’ve heard your pains and are continuously searching for ways to make the wireless network design experience faster and easier. Which is why we’ve been gathering your opinions on what cheat sheets, tables, and references you need for your work. Then, together with our R&D team, we have created a series of wireless reference posters to be used during the wireless network planning and design process (you’ve probably seen a few around!).

Which reference posters have we created so far?

We started with a 5 GHz Wireless Standards Reference poster, and after sorting through the requests, released 802.11 Wireless Standards and Power over Ethernet (PoE): Standards & Security.

Finally, our latest poster is about IEEE 802.11 Wireless Standards.

Check the wireless reference posters out if you haven’t already! All of them come in high-resolution, ready-to-print PDFs.

And please leave your comments to let us know what other reference sheets/posters or infographics will interest you or will be helpful in your job!

Cheytec Telecommunications Brings Better Indoor Coverage to the Enterprise using iBwave

Given our ever-growing need for data in today’s world of smart cities, smart buildings and the Internet of Things, the need for fast, reliable connectivity indoors has never been greater. Especially when it comes to the Enterprise.

Traditionally, wireless operators have been the main drivers for deploying indoor wireless networks to Enterprise venues and real estate properties. But with tenant and user demand out-pacing the carrier’s ability to -fund systems, building owners and Enterprise customers are now seeing the value of making capital investments in their properties and meet the demands of their network users.

Meet Cheytec Telecommunications, an iBwave customer whodelivers multi-operator turnkey in-buildng LTE solutions. Cheytec is helping to make an economic shift away from the carrier by expanding the addressable market to include building owners and enterprises. Cheytec does this by working with the wireless operators to bring their spectrum into buildings and leverage a highly developed partner network for both technology and service delivery. Capital investments in LTE coverage made by the building owner enables not just great indoor wireless service, but the opportunity for increased cash flows, higher valuations for property portfolios and new revenue sources. For wireless operators, the in-building system helps extend indoor coverage, densify networks, offer new services to current customers and gain net-new subscribers.

How has iBwave helped?

Designing a multi-carrier indoor wireless networks certainly comes with its fair share of challenges, especially when you are designing for multiple technologies – Small Cells, DAS, and Neutral Host D-RAN(C-RAN), and multiple different venue types.

Previously, Cheytec typically used iBwave to design sports stadiums and transportation hubs – but now they are focusing more on the Enterprise verticals, and with that comes different challenges to overcome. For example, the image on the right shows a heatmap generated in iBwave Design for a 4 story office building which Cheytec used to help select the right solution for this particular venue, accurately assess coverage and capacity requirements and estimate the cost of the entire system.

When using iBwave Design Enterprise, our multi-technology indoor wireless network planning and design platform, Cheytec’s engineers work more productively and can focus simultaneously on multiple projects. The result? Cheytec has reduced their network design process time by an estimated 30%.

Additionally, iBwave expedites the customer approval process significantly as customers recognize that they only use top quality tools and technologies within their designs – and that they have the ability to offer a wide range of in-building technology solutions with multiple design options.

These benefits also lead to reduced time spent on project coordination internally. Because of the speed and flexibility of iBwave Design, it allows Cheytec to accomodate design changes without necessarily altering the project timeline.

“By using iBwave we shorten our response time in terms of delivering a proposal enabling our team to close more deals and generate more revenue.”

José Sangiuliano – Chief Technology Officer, Cheytec Telecommunications

Cheytec’s Favorite iBwave Features

When asked what their favorite features are in iBwave Design, here is what Cheytec said (and why):

Automation of Design Enterprise Networks

With the powerful and intelligent design automation that iBwave provides, design errors are reduced and the time to produce and change designs is accelerated – iBwave also provides them with an efficient way to provide alternative design options for comparative purposes.

3D Predictive Modeling

3D predictive modeling has also been very helpful to Cheytecby providing their customers with a powerful way to visually show the benefits of the proposed solutions and the network performance prediction results, similar to the image on the right showing the 3D model for 40+ story hotel DAS project.

Design and Simulation of Most Cost-Efficient Designs

Also, with the capability to design the entire network using the iBwave database of over 25,000 network components for all wireless technologies, Cheytec is always able to generate a full BOM with Cost Details. This means always being sure they are simulating the most cost-efficient designs, and that their customers have the best design possible for their specific building.

Cheytec’s mission is to deploy the right solution into the right building every time. Using iBwavehas helped them to achieve this consistently.

Conclusion

iBwave has been a key partner for Cheytec by providing a powerful, flexible and comprehensive software solution to provide Enterprise customers and property owners with turnkey LTE solutions that drive value.

Thanks for being such a great customer Cheytec Telecommunications!

Are you an iBwave customer that wants to be featured in our Customer Spotlight series? Send us an email at marketing@ibwave.com

Pulling Teeth Made Easier: Adopting New Software Solutions

When I think of software, I often think of my dad. Despite being close to 80, he is well acquainted with software and hardware as he has been using mobile and smartphones, PCs and laptops for 20 years now. He even got an iPad and loves it. But he hates the rapid pace of change and the raft of new functionality and new designs that each successive wave of development brings. To get him to adopt a new UI or process, or a new piece of hardware is like pulling teeth.

It’s not just him, it’s virtually every user and customer I have ever met. Why did they change it? It worked just fine before? Change, whether it be in tools or processes, is almost like an unwanted visit to the dental surgeon, except you don’t get any Percocet with the new tool or process to ease the pain.

Scale Up the Disgruntlement: Enterprise Software Solutions

Now imagine this level of anger and disgruntlement scaled up to a whole organization. How could an entire organization be disgruntled over change? There is a category of software meant to ease the lives of many in business and thereby make those businesses more efficient and therefore more profitable. It’s called enterprise software.

I am the product manager for an enterprise software solution and I can tell you many stories about disgruntled employees who have had the latest greatest solution foisted upon them, thus upsetting their cherished and well-worn routines and process. People aren’t just resistant to change, they get angry when it’s pushed upon them.

I know of a case at a large company where the users actively petitioned against a new version of the software because it would force yet another change in process and more training. To those users, a new solution would have been like yanking out wisdom teeth, without the benefit of laughing gas.

However, organizations need to adapt in order to advance – and software solutions are sometimes the best answer. The key to it all, however, is getting planning and buy-in – not an easy task.

It’s All About the Plan

Human beings love routine and patterns. Our brains naturally look for patterns and routines so we can make sense of things. Since change is usually perceived by most humans as problematic as it breaks the established set of parameters, there really is only one proven way of getting those affected by the change to accept it: Build an adoption plan.

You’re probably saying to yourself: “Great, but that takes time and where do I begin?”

Indeed, it takes time to build a plan, but like most things in life, planning will make the actual roll-out and acceptance much easier. Think of it as directing a play and making adjustments after each rehearsal. You have the overall story, you have the script, you break it down into acts, choose the actors and how you want to stage the play. Then comes show time.

As a best practice, you can build your adoption plan around four major themes:

Prepare for Change

This is the most time-intensive part. You will need to spend time interviewing users to discover and document your own processes, and how they will be affected with the new solution, before, during and after implementation. You’ll need to set timelines for when each phase will happen and who will lead it.

Critical when preparing for change is the development of communications & roll-out plans. Preparing the messages for the different audiences is the foundation for success. When key stakeholders aren’t included, they feel left out and pushed aside. Remember, even if it’s a software solution, you’re dealing with human egos.

By the way, part of the change management plan is ensuring you have a team to support you. This can’t be done by one person alone – you need a sponsor, a project lead and a communications expert to do this. It takes a team to positively influence a team.

Get Buy-In

Like anything in life, if you don’t believe something will help you, it won’t work to its fullest potential, if at all. In the context of an enterprise software solution, you need stakeholders – not just end users – to buy in to the benefits the solution will provide. It’s essential to get an in-house champion, or two, and to get leaders (either by title or by influence) to understand the value and benefits – and to propagate the message.

Search for and ensure buy-in from leaders, power users, people with soft influence. Top-down acceptance is critical because leaders can push through change, but having someone who is respected and listened to is just as important as any VP or executive.

Educate

Education here refers to training end users. Most enterprises loathe spending time on training users, but it’s essential to get that hands-on experience. Additionally training has to be well planned. Make sure you train the specific roles so that you have backup in case power users quit, move on, transfer, etc. Also make sure that you do the training incrementally if time allows it. By getting one group well trained and productive before a solution is rolled out globally, you develop in-house experts who can act as multipliers for a solution.

Document

Sounds obvious – document this whole process, but this aspect is often neglected. By documenting your change plan, the messaging, project charters, the existing and future processes, as well as who the key stakeholders are, will not only serve you for the current roll-out, but in future implementations as well. It will also be your template for any other kind of organizational change that will certainly occur.

Even if you only capture this information in documents and PowerPoints, it’s still a good practice. These documents also become the objective source of truth when there are inevitable questions. If you have a CMS, store the documents there. Either way, document what you did, reuse the materials for the next change when it happens.

There you have it. Don’t pull teeth to get a company to adopt a software solution. Plan for change and ensure you get a higher rate of adoption than just foisting a new software savior on them with some training. You may even enjoy the process.