How many people need to connect?

• Do you have 10 employees, or 100?
• Do clients or customers at your place of business need wi-fi?
• Generally, most enterprise-grade hotspots will be fine up to 100 connections. If you have more than that, it’s worth considering a “higher grade” access point. For example, Ubiquiti’s XG reportedly handles up to 50,000 connections. This would be great for an event space, but probably overkill for a car dealership.

How big is your office or place of business?

• Typically, hotspots only cover a few thousand square feet, if that. If you need wi-fi for a 30,000 square foot warehouse, you're going to need multiple hotspots spaced strategically.

What is the layout like? Separate offices, or open floor plan?

• This will determine how many wi-fi access points are needed *and* what type.
• 2.4Ghz wi-fi is common because it penetrates walls well; The lower the frequency the better wall penetration.
• 5Ghz is the next most common; It doesn't penetrate walls well, but it can be up to twice as fast as 2.4Ghz, and it works extremely well in open floor plans.
• The material of the walls is an important factor. For example, glass and concrete typically don't let wi-fi through very well. If all your walls are concrete, expect to use more wi-fi access points than your typical gyprock/steel stud construction.

Are you using cloud-based digital signage? (Streaming video uses lots of bandwidth)

• Unless your building is fairly new or you retrofitted ethernet connections at your TVs, your digital signage devices are probably using wi-fi.
• Streaming video uses lots of bandwidth, so special consideration is needed to make sure there is no lag in your promotional videos, and also to prevent lag on other computers.

Are you using VoIP phones or security cameras over wi-fi? (Again, streaming video uses lots of bandwidth)

• If you have VoIP phones, the physical phones are probably hard-wired, but most VoIP systems allow you to have "soft phones" which means you can use your business phones from your smartphone or laptop.
• If this is the case, special consideration is needed to make sure your wi-fi can handle it. Or else, you will experience laggy or dropped calls.
• The main purpose of security cameras is to provide evidence in case of a crime, therefore, live performance isn't super important as far as lag goes. However, having security cameras streaming through your wi-fi could make the internet slow for everybody else if it is not setup properly.

Are all devices using wifi, or are most plugged in with ethernet? (Printers, computers, etc.)

• Some buildings have excellent ethernet wiring, therefore, very few devices need to use the wi-fi. In this case, you can probably use lower-grade or a smaller amount of access points.
• If you need wi-fi for every single computer, printer, and phone in your office, then the speed and reliability of your wi-fi is way more important.

How much coverage do you really need? For example, does it need to reach the far corners of your parking lot? How about the basement?

• It's not good enough to simply throw an access point in your server closet and expect it to reach the opposite corner office 3 floors up. Nor will an indoor access point provide good coverage outdoors.
• If you need wi-fi outdoors, you probably need to install an access point outdoors. This is because wi-fi signals do not pass well through exterior walls which are much thicker and stronger materials than interior walls. If your outdoor area is large, consider using a "long-range" access point which is optimized for really large, open spaces.