WaveDeploy Pro - Throughput Testing a Wireless Infrastructure

Downstream Speed Test

Recently I had the opportunity to test out WaveDeploy Pro on a fully installed wireless network. Normally the wireless projects I'm assigned aren't ones where I'm given security credentials to authenticate to the wireless network, but recently I had an exception.

MOS Upstream

WaveDeploy is an application that gives you the ability to do end-to-end TCP and UDP throughput testing from a wired workstation to wireless devices running the WaveDeploy application.

MOS Downstream

Initially I found the application quite confusing to configure, since it is so different from every other application I've used to test a wireless network. I had a short talk with someone from the WaveDeploy tech support, and they explained what I needed to do in order to get the application running as designed.

Downstream Speed Test

I installed the WaveDeploy application on my laptop (Lenovo X201 Win7 32) and downloaded the WaveAgent from iTunes onto my iPhone. I then loaded the floor plan for the area into WaveDeploy, scaled the drawing using a standard 3 foot doorway and then added my iPhone as a Mobile Client under Agents & Devices. The iPhone was added as a Mobile Client by using the IP address my iPhone received as an associated client device on the wireless network.

HTTP Upload

Once the Stationary Server (my laptop) and Mobile Clients (my iPhone) were added and their status was 'connected' I started the assessment. The Stationary Server then began to upload and download data to the Mobile Client each time I recorded another data point (to use the WCS calibration terminology). 

HTTP Download

It didn't take too long to complete the assessment for the small office area with just the iPhone as the only Mobile Client, but I can see that it might take some time to calibrate a large area with several different Mobile Clients.

AeroScout System Manager

The calibration process reminded me of the AeroScout System Manager method of recording data points from a central console by using client devices placed in a given location out in the area of the building to be calibrated. Of course, the major difference is that the AeroScout calibration is to increase location accuracy, and the WaveDeploy assessment is to perform bi-directional throughput testing of a wireless infrastructure.

The assessment provided interesting information about the wireless infrastructure, and I've include images of the data I collected for references. The WaveDeploy website has a lot of useful information on how to use their product, as well as white papers and archived webinar recordings.

The WaveAgent app is available for iPad, iTouch and iPhone from iTunes. When WaveDeploy is installed on a Win7 machine (like mine) the WaveAgent installers for other devices is kept in the folder: "C:\Program Files\VeriWave\WaveDeploy\agents".