08/08/2024 | Press release | Archived content
Cellular network connectivity has become ubiquitous and powers much of the IoT world today. Cellular carriers have optimized data plans to be able to provide customers with the best rates, with protection from overages, and leveraging private networks to secure those devices. It's almost certain that a cellular device customer has contracted with a particular cellular carrier to provide coverage for all of their devices, across hundreds or thousands of locations. But what happens when that carrier isn't the most optimal carrier at every location? This is where a wireless site survey can help.
Because of most people's experience with personal cell phones, and the ubiquity of cellular coverage, we have all had experience trying to get coverage in various locations. In other words, you may actually be informally doing a wireless site survey in your personal life, whether you've moved around a store or an outdoor space looking for the best connection to load a website or video, check your grocery list on your phone from the back of the store, or send a text from somewhere inside a venue - perhaps even knowing that if you can switch to another carrier network you'll be able to connect.
In the enterprise space, it's the job of an IT team to handle these concerns, with questions like:
But, can't they just go around the building with their cell phones to find the best connection? Let's explore.
Cellular connectivity is a wireless technology, which means it uses radio frequency to send data communications. There are a number of factors that play a part in how well the device's cellular connectivity will perform:
Additionally, cellular carriers have varying functionality, range, and locations where their networks function optimally. Let's look at three key terms that help to understand how things work behind the scenes:
All of these affect whether one carrier is better than another in a given area. A carrier whose network operates in a higher frequency of RF range is more impacted by things like concrete, rebar, and even modern windows. Lower frequency RF ranges penetrate through those things more easily.
As various carriers have bought up licensing rights from the FCC for RF ranges, the same carrier may not operate on the same frequency across the entire country, or potentially across a single area of a country. All of these items combined will affect the throughput (speed) on a given carrier at any location. A wireless site survey can help determine the best carrier for the area.
Digi's Professional Services team has worked with hundreds of Digi customers, and has frequently encountered situations where one carrier has better performance than another carrier due to various reasons, including location of cell towers, available frequency bands and their varying abilities to penetrate buildings, as well as available power outlets, antenna placement and locations.
In one use case, Digi Professional Services recently worked with a national retail provider who had a critical security event taking down their primary wired network, and our team was contacted to provide a Digi cellular solution to get their locations back up and running. A particular cellular carrier was selected, SIM cards installed, devices delivered to stores, devices installed by store managers and most stores were up and running and had a decent experience with the network connectivity provided.
However, there were several locations with suboptimal performance. Digi's Professional Services team was deployed to go onsite and perform wireless site surveys with multiple carrier options. The team then selected the carrier that was receiving the best network performance and installed that carrier's SIM card into the device. The team also assisted in helping relocate devices for more optimal cellular coverage and helped to align antenna placement to receive the best signal possible. After the team's visits, those locations with suboptimal performance were running on a different cellular carriers' network than previously, but now with optimal performance to allow the employees at that location to get their work done.
Here are some tips and tricks learned by the Professional Services team over the years that may prove useful to you.
Armed with these tips, it is easier to ensure that your cellular device installation goes smoothly and that your device will have the most optimal possible performance. However, getting installation teams trained and familiar with these aspects may not be easy. Digi's Professional Services team offers services for performing site-surveys, on site troubleshooting and training options to assist you in any way possible to ensure that you have the greatest success with Digi International's cellular devices.
If you need any of these services, reach out to Digi's Professional Services team at [email protected] and request a quote today!