Critical Thinking is Important

An exceptionally good question that was on my network engineering job application.

Scenario:
You’re a Network Engineer at an MSP and one of your clients says, “I need a network setup at our school”. So, Saturday morning you load your car with the basic network stuff. A server, a switch, some cables, and some wireless APs. (For this critical thinking exercise, details don’t matter). And you head out to the site.

You get there and you stand up the server, get the switch in place, and connect all the client’s workstations through, let’s say an existing patch-panel that was already pre-wired and ready to go. You have a bridged ISP gateway and a SonicWall acting as the edge-device.

So, the client tells you he wants to cover this certain area with wireless. So, he shows you the area and you figure out the placement of the APs, and then deploy them. You walk around with a wifi meter after the install and determine that everything is green across the board. You have solid connectivity, and you have good speed. The client, satisfied with your work, thanks you, and then you head on home.

Monday morning, the staff and student body return to the school and everyone whips out their tablets and other wireless devices and starts connecting to the network. A lot of people connect successfully with no problems, and a lot of people cannot connect at all. Why?