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Ekahau Site Survey

Written by IPTel Solutions | 28 January 2025 1:59:02 AM

There’s a bunch of tools on the market for Wi-Fi designs and different ones are suited for different purposes. Ekahau Site Survey (ESS) Pro is the key tool we use for RF Design.

We’ve developed extensive procedures and checklists around the use of Ekahau, which is how we’re able to deliver results for different types of survey and they meet the specification.

To produce consistent Wi-Fi designs, it's really important to have processes and checklists - we have many covering each typical type of design we build (for voice grade, or clinical, or a warehouse - work out the recipe for what works and then follow this each time). 

We use Ekahau for:

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Ekahau for Onsite Surveys

The software is coupled with the Sidekick and IPAD for site work.

The Ekahau Sidekick is used to accurately and consistently measure RF. This allows us to sample onsite and use the data to enhance our predictive model. It doesn't matter which Sidekick you use from our fleet - they all read very similarly.

One of the absolute first things you need to do for any survey is to import and scale the plan in Ekahau – let’s take a look at how that’s done - let's have a quick look at how you do that below.

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Importing a Plan into Ekahau

  1. Once you have created your Ekahau Pro Project File, you are ready to import a map
  2. Use the Map tool bar or select the three dots to add your map: 
  3. Browse to the location where you have exported the JPEG file and select this file
  4. You will now see this file in Ekahau Pro
  5. Use the Scaling tool to set the scale
  6. If unsure of scaling, we can sometimes use a maps tool (maps.google.com) or use a standard door to scale.
  7. Once the image is scaled, check the scale in another location.
  8. If you are not confident on the scale, make a comment. If a site visit is in scope, checking the scale is always recommended.

The scaling in item 5 above is critical to get your Wi-Fi design correct, so double check the size of the plan to ensure it's correct - we'll dig a bit more into this, in the section below.

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The importance of Map Scaling

While it doesn’t seem that important to scale a map, it is actually critical for all Wi-Fi designs.

An incorrectly scaled map will end up with an incorrect density and placement of APs.

The maps are scaled when imported for an RF design, but we then re-check this when we attend site for the pre-deployment survey.

There’s a few tools for doing this onsite, but a simple laser measure allows you to measure quite a long length in the building and compare that to the measurements in the plan.

If the two don’t match, the plan must be re-scaled and the bad news is the design needs to be re-checked – and maybe reworked. It pays to try and scale the plans correctly first time!

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Ekahau Site Survey: Summary

While we have provided some tips and insights into Ekahau in this blog, there’s a range of tools out there.

If you want to buy a copy of Ekahau drop us a line and we can help.

We also spend a lot of time working through designs and building out specific Wi-Fi installations for our customers, and in doing this we update our processes to keep in line with latest learnings and technologies.

The big change we have seen in Wi-Fi is the introduction of 6GHz, so RF designs now need to include designs for 6GHz.

If you are thinking of undertaking your own Wi-Fi designs, just ensure you understand the use cases you are looking to support – the weakest client your network will support is important to know, as that will be one factor in dictating how close together you’re APs need to be.

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