Wireless is spurradic on sundays

[RyanGard1977]

Alright folks, I'm a facilities tech contractor, so I get to go around installing and repairing many of the IT related stuff in meetinghouses, including being the one who is called to go look at things when the stake technology specialist is unable to figure out things, or we have a hardware issue that the STS can't take care of. This means I will often pick up new switches, APs, firewalls, and such from the FM Groups I serve who will order things in and for which the STS doesn't feel comfortable installing. But I am by no means an expert. But some of you are and I am not ashamed to put my pride and ego aside to ask for help/suggestions. Usually I work with global services tech support for configuration and verification.

I have a meetinghouse where it is being reported that the wireless network is going down frequently on Sundays, making it difficult for them to stream Sacrament services to those unable to attend in person.

What I have done thus far:

- replaced the SFP as these are a common failure point on the switches, they get HOT and do wear out. For those who are unaware- sometimes the little green indicator light below the SFP will be lit all the time which means it is presently inserted correctly and being detected by the switch. Sometimes it might be on and then go off, which usually means a bad SFP, and sometimes it is off completely, which means a bad SFP or rarely, a bad SFP port.

- Worked with the Internet Service Provider (Cable) to verify that they show good signal into the building and no errors on their cable modem and had them review their logs to verify no outages/down reports.

- Replaced older 33 model access points in the building up by the chapel on each side.

- Replaced the firewall in case of overheating

- Spent about 3 hours total on the phone with global services tech support agents who have reviewed logs and can see in the logs all the reset/reboot attempts on Sunday that the STS/local ward tech specialist are sending to the equipment, but otherwise show all green on the dashboard.

- Replaced the 24 port switch at their suggestion

The issue still persists. It is being reported to me on Sundays that they will go upstairs to where the equipment is at and verify that the indicator lights on the firewall and switch itself are white, and the connected and up/downstream lights on the cable modem are on and flashing as they would when passing traffic.

Everything has been rebooted a number of times. I have installed new Cat-5 cable going between the modem and firewall as well as from the firewall to the switch.

They are unable to reach anyone on Sundays at global services when the issue is happening because they are closed.

It appears to just the wifi that is having difficulties. but the reporting party told me that their clerk's office also uses the wifi instead of the wired connection which it shouldn't be doing, it should be using wired connection so I will check that out too, but they use a laptop in the back of the chapel where there are no wired jacks to connect to and rely on wifi. When I go to the building during the week, it is always up and working fine, coverage is EXCELLENT in this building.

Can you think of anything else I can try? I am likely going to need to go out to the building and be there on a Sunday (hour and a half away) as I do not get church VPN access in my role, so I cannot log in remotely to check things out.

[Biggles]

Are they using the Lehi SSID and turning off the Liahona network whilst streaming? This would be my first thing to try.

Not relevant in this scenario, but we had difficulties during our Stake Conferences with this issue. Checking in CNM before turning off Liahona we saw over 150 connections, which almost totally killed the internet.

[russellhltn]

A few random thoughts:

Does the chapel have ListenWiFi installed? If a number of people are using it, it might be saturating the WiFi. This is still a very new technology in our chapels.

I'm not sure if the APs will support a 802.11b device. If they do, then the AP will go down to less than 11Mbit total throughput to accommodate that outdated standard.

Are they using 2.4GHz wireless mics (or any other device on the same band)?

What's the signal strength at the back of the chapel? If it's low, it may not be enough with everyone there.

Rather then fighting this, how about having FM install jacks where they're needed? Sure seems odd they have a 24 port switch, yet seem to have a lack of wired ports. Even on a good day, wireless can have problems. Wired is more reliable.

[RyanGard1977]

Thank you for the replies. I'll take this info and see what we can do and let you know.