Support

By their very nature, wireless networks are complex and susceptible to interference and potential service-impacting factors that wired networks avoid. A carefully designed WLAN, and the use of the latest intelligent WLAN equipment, will help avoid these problems. However, you will undoubtedly encounter specific wireless-related issues during the support of your solution.

It is important that you develop a clear technical support framework. Your technical support staff should be trained in common wireless-related problems, and a tiered support structure is recommended, as follows:

• Tier 1 (or helpdesk support) should be familiar with common WLAN problems and issues.

• Tier 2 is usually a support team that handles more complex problems escalated by the helpdesk; this tier is often made up of IT engineers or analysts who were personally involved in the deployment or who have been specifically trained in wireless networking issues.

• Tier 3 support may be a senior team of wireless or networking experts, or it may denote an escalation path to the actual solutions provider or equipment manufacturer.

Regardless of the possible installation of management hardware or software, your support framework should be in place before you commence deployment. As mentioned elsewhere in this chapter, the initial adoption phase will be the most support intensive, and you will undoubtedly see a spike in the number of support calls and cases during this time. Your support staff, whether you have a tiered framework or not, should be prepared for this and ready to assist your users.