User Guide

The Alcatel RF Plan Tool 13
Radio Type
Specify the radio type(s) of your APs using the pull-down Radio Type menu on
the Modeling Parameters page. Available Radio Type Choices:
Overlap Factor
The Overlap Factor is the amount of signal area overlap that you want when
the APs are operating. Overlap is important if an AP fails. It allows the
network to self-heal with adjacent APs powering up to assume some of the
load from the failed device. Although there may be no holes in coverage in this
scenario, there will likely be a loss of throughput. Increasing the overlap will
allow for higher throughputs when an AP has failed and will allow for future
capacity as the number of users increases.
The valid range of values for the overlap factor are from 100% to 1000%.
Design Models
Three radio buttons on the page allow you to control the kind of model which
will be used to determine the number and type of APs.
Design Model Radio Button Options:
The desired rate is selectable from 1 to 54 Mbps in both the Coverage and
Capacity models.
Users
NOTE—The Users text boxes are active only when the Capacity model is
selected.
z 801.11a 5GHz, Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
(OFDM) with data rates up to 54Mbps.
z 802.11b 2.4GHz, Direct Spread Spectrum (DSSS) multiplexing
with data rates up to 11Mbps.
z 802.11g 2.4GHZ, OFDM/CCK (Complementary Code Keying) with
data rates up to 54Mbps.
z Coverage Use this option to let RF Plan automatically determine the
number of APs based on desired data rates and the
configuration of your building.
z Capacity Use this option to let RF Plan determine the number of
APs based on the total number of users, ratio of users to
APs, and desired data rates.
z Custom Use this option to simply specify a fixed number of APs.