Table of Contents

1. Introduction.................................................................................................................................2
2. WLAN Site Survey......................................................................................................................3
3. Design Considerations.................................................................................................................4
3.1 Physical Location.......................................................................................................................4
3.2 Goal of Network.........................................................................................................................4
3.3 Radio Frequency Coverage Considerations.............................................................................4
3,4 Frequencies Used for Wireless LAN.........................................................................................5
3.5 WLAN Power Transmission......................................................................................................5
3.6 Radio Frequency Range and Speed Considerations................................................................7
3.6.1Visual Line of Sight..............................................................................................................7
5. Hardware and Software Requirements......................................................................................9
5.1 Hardware Requirements...........................................................................................................9
5.1.1 Wireless Router...................................................................................................................9
5.1.2 Cabling...............................................................................................................................10
6. Conclusion..................................................................................................................................14
7. References..................................................................................................................................15
 1. Introduction
With the rising prices in property in the 21 st century, the shift from making large
offices to implementing Small Office Home Office setups are making a move in the industry.
SOHOs are usually a small residential area repurposed as an office. One SOHO should house
about 5-10 people (Beal, 2019).

The main reason this movement is happening is because of how many companies are
developing virtual solutions with small teams that does not need a large office. These
business models rely on adequate technology to fuel their development and incubation. One
of the most important factors to the technology they will need is access to the internet.

Networking plays a very important role to businesses and society in general

nowadays. Many business models will revolve around the use of social media, and online
platforms. A small company will need a full functioning network running in their office in
order to thrive in this environment. With many young talented individuals trying to make
their mark in the world, company xxxxxxx is planning on moving to Endah Promenade to
build their SOHO

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 2. WLAN Site Survey
As the network consultant of xxxxxxx, we are being assigned to build a wireless local
area network for the company’s new Small Office Home Office. The space we are given is a
1279 square feet apartment unit in Endah Promenade. In order to make effective use of
resources, a site survey is required to understand the network performance in the location.
Our task is to determine the feasibility of building a wireless network on the location,
therefore we will conduct a site survey by checking the area using a heat mapper. Then we
will decide based on the results of the survey the best location and setup for the access points
in the area. Upon agreement, we have visited the site and conducted an interview with the
clients. On our interview we asked the following questions:

1. How many users are expected to use the network?

2. Will public access be required?
3. Is there any preference for a specific manufacturer’s equipment?
4. Is there a network already in place?
5. What technology was used previously for the network?
6. Are there any areas that lack RF coverage?
7. What kind of applications will be used?
8. Any applications that will use QoS?
9. Is roaming required?
From this interview and surveying the site, the team finds that the company consist of 10
people, each person will have around 2-3 devices that will want to connect to the network.
The team will have guests every now and then (clients, and other guests) which would be
useful if they can expand the network capacity. The client has no preferences for any
manufacturer equipment but would highly appreciate a low-cost solution that is reliable for
the time being. The team previously have already used network devices that came with their
internet service provider package. There are some areas in the unit that lacks coverage
making it an inconvenience to the team sometimes and experience loss of connection once
every day. The company has not used any QoS services. Lastly the company does not mind if
roaming is applied or not.

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3. Design Considerations

3.1 Physical Location

The site to be surveyed is located in Endah Promenade, a residential district in
Bukit Jalil area. The site is located on the 26th floor of the block and is meant to be a
repurposed office from a residential living space. There are 3 rooms that will be used
as offices. Each room has windows for ventilation. As for telecommunication
services, a few ISPs are available in the area so getting Internet will not be a problem.
The entire office’s walls are all 15cm concrete walls that would interfere with the
signal, but with the relatively small space given, a wireless network will be feasible in
this area.

3.2 Goal of Network

The goal for designing this network is for a small office home office that can
house 10-30 devices at once. Given that the location may not cause issues, the number
of users will affect the network performance for individual experience. However,
because the main intention of the network is for internet connection and use of
software such as word processors and spreadsheets within office, the number of users
should not hinder the optimum performance.

3.3 Radio Frequency Coverage Considerations

When designing a Wireless Network, we need to consider the actual
performance of devices in the area. In a wireless network, devices connect wirelessly
through radio frequencies transmission. Radio waves emitted from the access point
will have a certain range called a Basic Service Area. In order to have maximum
performance, we need to make sure the access point’s basic service area covers the
entire office. After gathering information, we will conduct the site survey using a heat
mapper. A heat mapper will illustrate the signal strength of an area. This can be further
detailed with blueprints of the unit provided below. On the site we used a normal
home-grade access point to test its range. We are using this as a model because the
power output and coverage of this single access point should be sufficient to cover the
whole unit. In this case, we will be testing both for 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands.
According to Speedcheck.org, RSSI has standards for signal strength measured in
decibels (dBm). The measurement ranges from 0 dBm to -120 dBm. For a device to
have reasonable performance in the network, they must receive a signal at maximum

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-75 dBm. In our heat map, we are looking for signal strength that does not reach a red
colour.

Figure 1 Heatmap for 2.4GHz Figure 2 Heatmap 5GHz

3,4 Frequencies Used for Wireless LAN
Wireless LAN runs on 2 bands of radio frequencies, which are 2.4GHz &
5GHz. In comparison, 2.4GHz has better obstruction penetration, and compatibility
with older devices since it has been around for longer and most devices support 2.4
GHz Wi-Fi. Th issue is, 2.4GHz has a few cross-talking channels that hinder its
maximum speed. Additionally, 2.4GHz is a frequency shared by many appliances
other than for Wi-Fi. These include Microwave ovens, Video devices, car alarms,
Bluetooth, and many more. The presence of these other devices may share and
overlap a channel reducing performance. 5GHz is the newer technology that solves
the performance issue from 2.4GHz. It has higher throughput (up to 867Mbps), but
the trade off from this technology is its lower object penetration and range. Generally,
in order to maintain the its high performance more Access points are required.
Because the area will still have walls that will obstruct the wireless signal, we must
test how much it will affect actual performance on the site. According to the CWNA
Official Study Guide (Coleman and Westcott, 2018), a concrete wall would attenuate
-12dBm of signal transmission. In order to check the best performance to value, we
will try to place the Access point in the middle of the unit to see if a single access
point will be enough to cover the entire unit.

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3.5 WLAN Power Transmission
At first glance to maximize performance we would try to set Access points to
use the maximum power to get the most value out of our expensive routers and access
points. However, in reality this is not always a good option to do. There are certain
limitations to consider when doing this. The first one to consider is that the power
output does not actually increase coverage. In theory it does increase the coverage,
but Wi-Fi is a 2-way connection. The access point may be powerful enough to
transmit signals across a certain distance, but user mobile devices are not setup that
way. Mobile devices have limited battery; therefore it is not built to consume much
power to transmit radio frequency signals. High coverage is also not always a good
thing. In a few scenarios, high coverage will make it difficult for a device to roam
from 1 access point to another. Devices have a feature called roaming where they will
disassociate themselves from a network if their connection from the previous network
is deteriorating. If a single access point has high coverage but does not actually give
good performance, it will be difficult for devices to decide to move access points or
not.

High power output also causes problems with neighbouring access points.
When 2 access points are too close to each other they often experience something
called interference. Although in terms of design we should try to have an overlap in
positioning access points to maintain connectivity when roaming between areas,
having them too close would cause them to induce each other and have hardware
issues (superfluous signal in the circuits). A high-power output could also cause
distortion in signals. Overcharged signals might be difficult to decode and require
retransmissions.

Lastly, any hardware being fed high amount of electricity will produce heat.
Heat will slowly spoil hardware components over a long period of time. By putting
WLAN devices on high power output, it will break faster due to heat. Based on these
reasons, it has been decided that the WLAN devices in this project will be set to a
medium-high power output to maintain its performance but minimize the negative
side effects from running it on full power.

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3.6 Radio Frequency Range and Speed Considerations
3.6.1Visual Line of Sight
When setting up a connection between 2 places, a visual line of sight
must be established. This means between the 2 antennas, there shouldn’t be
any visual obstacle blocking their communication. What we are looking for in
visual line of sight is the direct vision between these 2 antennas. From one
point to another should be physically visible to each other. This will not affect
our network design as we are testing the coverage for 1 access point to be
sufficient for the space required.

3.6.2 Interference

Interference occurs when devices share the same radio frequency range
in the same area. As mentioned earlier, interference can occur between
wireless devices and non-wireless devices. This means the presence of other
appliances that use radio frequencies will affect the performance in the area.
However, because the area we are dealing with is a SOHO, this is negligible.

3.6.3 Environment (RF Behaviour)

Reflection

Reflection occurs when a radio wave hits a non-absorptive

surface such as tables and walls. The signal will weaken from the
bounces it experiences. In any indoor design with walls, this will affect
network performance. If the number of walls in the room affect the
performance too much, a secondary access point might be required to
support the performance requirement.

Refraction

Refraction may occur in long distance transmissions where the

signal is bent/redirected when the radio waves must travel between
different mediums. These different mediums can be created by
differences in air density and temperature. In our case, this should not
affect the network performance as our network is built indoors and the
differences in air temperature shouldn’t affect the performance to any
significant amount.

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 Diffraction

Diffraction occurs when a signal tries to pass through a small

gap causing it to spread in many directions in the other end and
causing the signal to grow weaker as it spreads in all directions from
the gap. In our layout this may affect our network performance a bit as
there are a few doorways that may cause this distortion in the smaller
rooms.

Scattering

Scattering occurs when a signal hits an uneven surface. The

signal will be reflected in many directions hence causing signal loss. In
our project this should not affect the network performance as our
layout does not have any objects that would cause scattering.

4. WLAN Deployment Diagram

Figure 3 Unit Blueprint Layout

1. There will be 2 access point/router set up in the main room/living room and 1 in the
“master bedroom” of the blueprint (indicated by blue circles)
2. The Wi-Fi coverage will make sure the whole site will receive Wi-Fi coverage
3. The setup is made to be the most cost effective for the requirements given.

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 5. Hardware and Software Requirements
5.1 Hardware Requirements
5.1.1 Wireless Router
The router is the most important thing in a wireless network. A router
acts as the bridge between all the devices in the area to accessing the network
and the internet. All these devices connect to the router through an access
point. Due to the high demand in home routers, routers and access points are
nowadays combined under 1 device. In this case we want to implement a
separate network from the original one to separate users and devices that are
within the secondary network. This adds security to the network by separating
certain resources to be isolated from the outside.

When deciding a router, we must mainly consider the coverage, speed

capability, security options. With the given requirements gathered, we
recommend the TP-Link Archer C2300 or the totolink A3000RU. The team
chose these 2 routers because, we were aiming for a single access point in the
area. The TP-Link routers specified coverage range of the router, which is why
we aimed to get one that could cover the entire site. For this reason, according
to the information the team managed to get, the TL-Link Archer C2300 series
is most fit for the requirement. The Totolink A3000RU router was the router
we used for testing in the site. The following is the specification comparison
between the 2 models. The data is taken from jitcoserv.com & TP-link.com

Figure 4 TP-Link Archer C2300 Figure 5 TotoLink AC3000RU

Specification Totolink A3000RU TP-link Archer C2300

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Wi-Fi (2.4GHz) 300 Mbps 600 Mbps
Wi-Fi (5GHz) 867 Mbps 1625 Mbps
No. of Wi-Fi unspecified 24-32
devices supported
Ethernet ports 1 Gigabit WAN & 4 Gigabits 1 Gigabit WAN & 4 Gigabits LAN
LAN
USB Ports 1 USB 3.0, 1 USB 2.0 1 USB 2.0
MU-MIMO Yes Yes
Wireless Security 64/128-bit WEP, WPA, WPA2 64/128-bit WEP, WPA/WPA2,
and WPA-Mixed WPA-PSK/WPA-PSK2
encryptions
We chose these 2 models because we wanted to get cost effectiveness
from both models. Because the requirements do not specify the speed they
want from the ISP, both are available to be used in both 2.4GHz and 5GHz
band. In terms of price the Totolink A3000RU is a lot cheaper than the TP-
Link Archer C2300, but the TP-Link Archer C2300 has better security
functions, capacity to store more users and brand reliability. For this reason,
we recommend using the Totolink router. According to Bradley Mitchell, in
his article “How Many Devices Can Connect to One Wireless Router”,
practically speaking 50 devices is the limit. However according to my own
personal market research on the field, a home grade router can manage at max
12-15 devices at once. To handle more users in 1 area it would require more
than 1 access point in the area or a higher-grade access point. For this reason,
it would make sense to apply the TP-Link router. However, the price
difference is too great that the market price for 1 TP-Link Archer C2300 can
purchase 3 Totolink A3000RU Routers. Because of this, it would be much
more efficient to purchase 2 Totolink routers than a TP-Link Archer C2300.

5.1.2 Cabling
In a wireless system, there are still a few components of the network
that will still be physically wired using cables. For instance, the network can
connect to the internet through a modem, however a modem does not have any
wireless connectivity, in this situation a cable will need to be connected from
the modem to the router/access point. There are many networking cables used
in the industry. These cables consist of 2 to 4 pairs of smaller copper cables
that transmit electrical signals between devices. These cables are what make
up a wired network. For normal office use, it is common to see between cat5e,

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cat6, and cat6e cables used. Each cable have their own limit to data transfer
and length. In these cables the main issue is the crosstalk each cable may
create. When electricity flows in a copper cable, it creates electromagnetic
waves around the cable that may affect its neighbouring cables and interrupt
the flow of electricity from long distance. For this reason, choosing the right
cable for its requirement is important.

According to planetechusa.com (2016), Cat5e cables has a maximum

transfer speed of 1000Mbps, and is the cheapest of the most used networking
cables. Cat6 cables are more commonly used and have features to reduce
crosstalk. It does this by twisting the cable pairs inside the outer cable. Cat6
cables are able to transmit as high as 10Gbps speeds and frequencies up to 250
MHz. For this reason, the team will be using cat6 cables. Cat6 cables are
slightly more expensive than cat5e, but with the current progress in making
data rates faster, using cat6 cables will make it easier when the company
decides to upgrade their network equipment.

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5.2 Software Requirements

5.2.1 Intrusion Detection System

Figure 6 Intrusion Detection System

Intrusion detection (ID) is the process of monitoring and identifying

attempted unauthorized system access (yadav, 2018). It does this by
monitoring all network traffic inbound and outbound from the network. There
are 4 types of IDs. The first is NIDS (Network Intrusion Detection Systems)
where each choke point of a network switch is configured for a network tap in
which the system will monitor malicious traffic from there. Second is the
HIDS (Host-Based Intrusion Detection System) where it uses a software
placed on a host to track any malicious changes in the network’s databases.
Third is PIDS (Perimeter Intruder Detection System) where an alarm will be
triggered if malicious activity is detected on the perimeter. The perimeter for
PIDS is normally located on the fibre optic cables. Last is VMIDS (Virtual
Machine Intrusion Detection System) which is fairly new concept of checking
intrusion using virtual machines that are deployed to detect the malicious
activity here. The team has decided to implement a HIDS on a device in the
network. We are implementing this as a means of basic security within the
network. Once deployed the network will not have someone monitoring their
traffic 24/7 for a small office. To fulfil security requirements, a HIDS should
be sufficient to maintain security of the network along with firewall systems

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5.2.2 Firewalls

A firewall is a device that installed between the internal network of an

organization and the rest of the network (yadav, 2018). The role of a firewall is
to filter packets that pass through it and filter ones that are unauthorized for
the network. Firewalls are placed around the router to monitor network traffic.
The difference between IDS and Firewalls is that Firewalls will scan traffic
outgoing from the internal network, while IDS will monitor the traffic within
the internal network. The team has decided to implement at base a proxy
firewall that will scan incoming traffic and process it at the machine hosting
the proxy firewall before actually forwarding the data to the intended
destination.

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 6. Conclusion
This report shows the documentation of the processes done to fulfil a new Wireless
LAN for a Small Office Home Office. The process of requirement gathering regarding the
intended use of the network and the preferences the client had for the network was presented
in this layout. The team conducted a site survey to identify the RF coverage of the whole unit.
After the heat map of the RF coverage was generated, the team decided on the kind of
hardware and software that will be used for the site. The team decided to use a Totolink
AC3000RU as an additional router in the back room to extend the network coverage, cabling
to connect the 2 routers, and

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 7. References

Speedcheck.org. (2019). What is a RSSI?. [online] Available at:

https://www.speedcheck.org/wiki/rssi/ [Accessed 4 Dec. 2019].

Coleman, D. and Westcott, D. (2018). CWNA. 5th ed. John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Tp-link.com. (2019). Archer C2300 | AC2300 Wireless MU-MIMO Gigabit Router | TP-Link.
[online] Available at: https://www.tp-link.com/us/home-networking/wifi-router/archer-
c2300/#overview [Accessed 4 Dec. 2019].

Jitcomserv.com. (2019). TOTOLink A3000RU. [online] Available at:

http://jitcomserv.com/index.php/networking/router/totolink-ac3000ru [Accessed 4 Dec.
2019].

Planet Technology USA. (2016). Demystifying Ethernet Types— Difference between Cat5e,
Cat 6, and Cat7 - Planet Technology USA. [online] Available at:
https://planetechusa.com/demystifying-ethernet-types-difference-between-cat5e-cat-6-and-
cat7/ [Accessed 4 Dec. 2019].

yadav, a. (2018). Network Design: Firewall, IDS/IPS. [online] Infosec Resources. Available
at: https://resources.infosecinstitute.com/network-design-firewall-idsips/#gref [Accessed 4
Dec. 2019].

Beal, V. (2019). What is Small Office / Home Office(SOHO)? Webopedia Definition. [online]
Webopedia.com. Available at: https://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/SOHO.html [Accessed 4 Dec.
2019].

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