In the second part of our series you’ll discover best practices for designing and deploying 802.11n a wireless LAN (WLAN), from RF design and band/channel selection to access point placement for coverage and capacity. After reading this section, you will understand where to start when adding 802.11n to your wireless LAN and the key factors that must be considered during the design process.

Don't miss any of the articles in this tutorial on deploying 802.11n for improved wireless LAN performance:

• 802.11n for improved WLAN performance
• 802.11n WLAN design best practices
• Supporting legacy devices
• Optimizing 802.11n for voice over WLAN
• Delivering video over your 802.11n WLAN

Anyone deploying and designing a wireless LAN (WLAN) today should use 802.11n access points (APs). Not only do prices rival 11a/g, but indoor spaces may need fewer APs thanks to 11n's reach. Although some battery-powered devices have not yet been re-factored, most new clients ship with 11n as well. In short, buy 11n unless business needs absolutely dictate otherwise.

When it comes to designing your 802.11n WLAN, however, best practices are far more elusive. For example:

• Channel architecture: Nearly all products use multiple channels to create micro-cells, but at least two vendors use a single channel to create one big RF layer. The latter clearly cuts roam time when clients move, but trade-offs are hotly debated.
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• Distribution of control: 802.11n exposes bottlenecks and inefficiencies in centrally controlled WLANs. Small controllers can be swamped by high throughput, tunneling everything to one controller causes latency, and extending QoS end-to-end can be hard. For best results, centralize administration and visibility while delegating real-time QoS and security control tasks to APs.