What Is a Wireless Site Survey, and What Are the Benefits?
Cisco describes a radio-frequency (RF) site survey as the first step in a successful wireless LAN deployment. The process involves visiting the site, studying its layout and materials, and measuring how wireless signals propagate, overlap and interfere with one another. That work informs decisions about where to place access points, how many are needed and how they should be configured.
Ekahau takes a similar but more on-the-ground approach.
A wireless site survey “is going to be someone who is walking around your venue,” Starling says, using specialized tools to record the RF environment. That process, he adds, often reveals issues agencies don’t expect, including problem areas and sources of interference “that you just had no idea about.”
HPE Aruba’s design guidance frames surveys as a core part of WLAN design, not an optional step. The company recommends treating surveys as a necessary part of any medium-to-large deployment, particularly as organizations move into higher-frequency bands such as 6 gigahertz.
For government IT leaders, experts say the benefits are clear.
- Better coverage: Surveys help confirm that Wi-Fi extends into council chambers, courtrooms, permit counters and other spaces where staff and residents interact.
- Higher performance: By mapping signal strength and noise, engineers can tune power levels and channel plans to support dense device populations and high-bandwidth applications.
- Improved reliability: Post-deployment surveys help IT teams validate that roaming works smoothly and that there are no unexpected dead zones.
- Fewer surprises from interference: Modern tools detect non-Wi-Fi interference sources that can degrade service even when signal strength looks good on paper.
“If you’re providing mission-critical services over Wi-Fi, you want data that says the network will hold up, not just a diagram,” Starling says.
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What Are the Main Types of Wireless Site Survey?
Agencies typically rely on a mix of predictive modeling and onsite measurements to design and validate government Wi-Fi networks.
Predictive design
Before anyone goes onsite, predictive design tools use floor plans and building details to simulate how a wireless network will perform. Ekahau’s AI Pro software, for example, allows engineers to import layouts, specify wall types and input performance requirements. The software then recommends access point locations and estimates coverage and capacity.
“AI-assisted design is really the new way to design Wi-Fi networks now,” Starling says.
HPE Aruba’s RF design documents encourage this approach as a way to standardize designs across similar facilities.
Passive wireless surveys
A passive wireless survey involves walking the environment with survey tools to listen to existing wireless activity. Cisco’s field teams routinely perform these surveys to generate heat maps that show where coverage is strong or weak and where interference is present.
Ekahau’s Sidekick 2 network testing device combines multiple radios and a spectrum analyzer to collect detailed measurements across 2.4, 5 and 6GHz bands as surveyors move through the building. The data is then visualized on top of the floor plans used in the original design.
“If you’ve got an existing network, a passive survey is a really powerful way to validate how it’s actually behaving today,” Starling says.
Active wireless surveys
Active wireless surveys go further by connecting to the network as a client and measuring real throughput, latency and roaming behavior. This can help IT teams understand whether key applications — such as video, voice and cloud-based productivity suites — are performing as expected in busy government facilities.
Starling says many organizations now combine passive and active techniques in a single pass, giving them both RF and user-experience data. “You want to see what the air looks like and what the users see at the same time,” he says.
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Wi-Fi 7 vs Wi-Fi 6E: The Role of Wireless Site Surveys
State and local agencies weighing Wi-Fi 7 often start from a more immediate question: Is it enough to move to Wi-Fi 6E, or should they plan now for Wi-Fi 7 as well?
HPE Aruba describes Wi-Fi 6E as an extension of Wi-Fi 6 into the 6GHz band, offering additional spectrum and wider channels that can significantly boost capacity in dense environments. Aruba and Cisco both emphasize that these gains depend on careful RF design, especially because 6GHz signals behave differently from 2.4 and 5GHz.
Cisco warns that a successful deployment in any new band “is dependent on a good RF design,” backed by both predeployment planning and postdeployment surveys.
Starling says Wi-Fi 7 should be part of the conversation when agencies are already planning a major refresh or new build.
“If you’re in a position where you’re ripping and replacing anyway, that’s when it makes sense to look at Wi-Fi 7,” he says. “But you still need a complete new design to make sure that the network is completely ready.”
At the same time, he argues, agencies shouldn’t overlook the benefits of simply getting more devices onto 6GHz, whether through Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7.
“Moving the modern devices onto those frequency bands is an added benefit for everyone else on the network,” Starling says, noting that older and IoT devices often see better performance once newer endpoints leave the crowded 2.4GHz and 5GHz lanes.
What Are Best Practices for Agencies in a Wireless Site Survey?
Experts say agencies get the most value from wireless site surveys when they treat them as part of an ongoing process, not a one-off project.
Ekahau recommends that state and local governments start by formalizing requirements in plain language: Which applications must work over Wi-Fi? How many devices will be present in peak periods? What are the coverage expectations in public, semi-public and restricted areas?
From there, IT teams can use predictive tools from Ekahau, Cisco and HPE Aruba to generate preliminary designs for representative building types. Onsite surveys — using a device such as Sidekick 2 — then validate those models, revealing where access points should move, where additional APs are needed and where interference must be addressed.
Starling says agencies should also think of surveys as recurring health checks rather than one-time tests. Experts say that kind of discipline will matter even more as agencies adopt Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7, adding new spectrum and new devices to already complex environments.
“Wi-Fi has become the default access layer,” Starling says. “The more we rely on it for critical public services, the more important it is to prove — with real measurements — that the network can deliver.”
