Over the pond to WiFi Design Day in London

After 5,478 miles and a few hours of sleep, I found myself at WiFi Design Day in London with 300+ other professionals. It is clear to see Wi-Fi being a big topic in the IT industry when you see these numbers show up at a niche event.

I felt excited to meet my Wi-Fi friends, some I had last seen just a month ago. What was very surreal is having people who I am meeting for the first time mention their feedback on the Clear To Send podcast.

There were some who had nice stories of getting into Wi-Fi and using the podcast to further their careers and obtain new certifications. It made me feel more confident to speak in front of this audience.

My favorite part of WiFi Design Day was getting together with others and making new friends. Thank you Ekahau and Open Reality.

We kicked if the event with Stephen Bye, the CEO of Ookla, sharing his commitment to changes at Ekahau, improving culture and integrating Ekahau into other business units. Steve sounded genuine and we have seen recent changes. I was curious to how Ekahau would evolve from this point forward and how integration with other Ookla products can boost the brand.

Ookla collects over a billion tests with Speedtest 😬 And he goes into addressing the elephant in the room by stating Ekahau is evolving and there will be continued investment in Ekahau to make it better. It sounded genuine.

An interesting thing Stephen showed the attendees is how they are able to build data sets. The middle image shows performance of networks from floor by floor.

We heard from Matt Sterling and Mac Deryng proudly present their before and after of the large Wi-Fi network of L’Oréal’s distribution center. What I took away from that presentation was the accuracy between a predictive model and the validation survey details. It wasn’t far off!

They came out with some tips for warehouse Wi-Fi and I applaud them for providing some real world information on how to test, design, and validate such a large environment. This is how we should approach all projects. The data shown was very enlightening.

A tough follow after the Ekahau men, Troy Martin gave me some ideas when it came to performing an Active Survey with Ekahau and how that data can be displayed using a custom report. He explained how Passive surveys should be recommended due to the large amount of time required to complete an active survey. But nonetheless, interesting data that you can include in a report. Even if it is just for testing, such as putting it into the previous slides by Matt and Mac!

David Coleman always shares insightful information and I enjoy his conversations outside of the sessions. He’s been in the industry for a long time and has a wealth of knowledge. So when he speaks about upcoming Wi-Fi standards I make sure to listen. And I really listen when he talks about his journey and provides his insights throughout the Wi-Fi industry.

Hafida Barhoun gave an informational presentation of how Cisco Catalyst wireless does roaming. I learned a few things about the knobs you can change within the wireless LAN controller. A reason why we need to know exactly what these knobs do so you have a better handle on how devices roam on your network.

Connor Burke, from AccelTex, spoke about large public venues and how antennas can be used to provide fan facing Wi-Fi coverage. He also talked about the different challenges you may run into. This is where I learned about matching the grade of the slope for the seating area and how trigonometry can really help here!

Phil Morgan gave the crowd a stern talk about Wi-Fi security. A topic not spoken about often and I’m glad he did it. Makes you wonder about the adoption of WPA3 since many networks are and will continue to be stuck in WPA2. And if you’re going to use a pre-shared key, it is best to go for a longer password instead of a complex password. But you must focus on entropy.

Keith Parsons came on stage to share something simple but so powerful - Checklists. He started off by comparing other roles such as fighter pilots and surgeons. They use checklists all the time. So why shouldn’t Wi-Fi pros use checklists? I think it’s a perfect idea. He actually shares a Wireless LAN Pros checklist for everyone to download.

Keith is a hard presenter to follow but I did my best :) I broke down the frames in an eduroam connection. It’s really 802.1X but I approached it as a method to learning how something works so you can understand how to troubleshoot when it breaks.

Dobias van Ingen discussed a topic that not many people talk about - Power Save Modes. And if you really think about power saving, it happens often, but I could see how issues could arise because of it. It’s a highly technical talk and I hope to see more of it! Might dig into it myself in the near future.

Ashley Mead shares his experience with Football stadium Wi-Fi design. Really high density stuff, high capacity, with challenging installation options. And again, trigonometry made its way onto a presentation. First time I’ve seen it mentioned at all during a conference.

Stephen Cooper works some magic with automation of deploying a ton of sites and uploading floor plans with the AP locations by using a single script. He managed configure many many sites on the Mist dashboard during his talk. This is the power of automation and it can be a powerful tool for your team.

Jakub Talalaj touches upon the love triangle of Wi-Fi networks but it’s not that type of conversation. It’s a good perspective into looking at Wi-Fi networks, gaining insight, and understanding what’s happening.

And we ended with Andrew McHale showing the results of his 6 GHz client testing with iOS and Android devices. He gives an interesting analogy of Wi-Fi roaming being like speed dating. A device meets with one AP and then moves on to the next, all very quickly. But his data really does open up your eyes to how devices will roam with the amount of channels provided and it doesn’t look very efficient. Maybe the device manufacturers need to iron things out. And hopefully soon.

The video recordings will be published by Open Reality on their YouTube page.

Overall, I thought WiFi Design Day was a great one-day conference. The talks were right in the sweet spot for time. There seemed to be over 300 attendees too! I was able to have some great conversations with new and existing friends. It was wonderful meeting others for the very first time and humbling to hear some speak about how the Clear To Send podcast made an impact in their career. I hope I do get to make it out to the next one!