Office wi-fi complaints follow a pattern. It is fine at the desk nearest the cupboard, poor in the meeting room, and drops out when people walk between the two.
The usual response is to buy another access point, which frequently makes it worse.
Why more equipment can hurt
Wi-fi is radio, and radio in the same band interferes with itself.
Two access points on the same or overlapping channels within range of each other do not add capacity. They compete, and every device connected to either one waits for the other to stop transmitting.
In a small office where three access points can all hear each other, adding a fourth reduces throughput for everybody. This is the single most common cause of a network that got worse after somebody tried to improve it.
The three real causes of poor coverage
Placement
Access points are usually installed where there is a network point and a power socket, which is rarely where the coverage is needed.
Signal is blocked by what buildings are made of: solid walls, plasterboard with foil backing, metal shelving, lift shafts, water tanks, and glass with metallic coating. An access point in the corridor cupboard serving a meeting room through two solid walls will not perform, whatever its specification says.
Coverage should be planned around where people work, not where cabling happens to exist. If that means new cabling, that is the correct answer.
Channel allocation
In the 2.4GHz band there are only three channels that do not overlap. Everything else interferes, and 2.4GHz is also shared with other equipment entirely outside your control.
The 5GHz band has far more channels and much less congestion, at the cost of shorter range and poorer penetration through walls. Modern deployments put most devices on 5GHz and keep 2.4GHz for equipment that needs it.
The 6GHz band, where supported, has more space again and even less range.
Business systems manage this centrally. Consumer equipment mostly does not, which is why a set of consumer access points in one building tends to interfere.
Roaming
The complaint about drop-outs while walking is usually not a coverage gap. It is that the device has not switched.
Devices decide for themselves when to move between access points, and most hold on far too long — clinging to a distant one at poor signal while a good one sits overhead.
Business wireless systems can encourage devices to move, using standards designed for exactly this. Consumer equipment generally cannot, which is why roaming in a multi-point consumer setup is poor even when coverage is adequate.
Most office wi-fi problems are design problems. Buying better equipment and installing it in the same places produces better equipment installed in the wrong places.
What a proper design involves
A survey. Walking the building measuring actual signal, ideally with the floor plan and construction in mind. It identifies where coverage is needed and what is in the way.
Placement for coverage, not convenience. Ceiling-mounted, in the space being served, with cabling run to suit.
Power over Ethernet. One cable for data and power, which removes the constraint of needing a socket at every location.
Deliberate channel and power settings. Turning power down is often the right move — an access point shouting across the whole building means devices connect to it from too far away.
Separate networks for separate purposes. Staff, guests, and devices such as printers or till systems, each isolated appropriately — see VLANs explained.
Verification afterwards. Walk it again and measure. An installation nobody verified is a hope.
The things that are not wi-fi problems
Before redesigning wireless, rule these out:
The internet connection. If everybody is slow including on cable, the wireless is not the constraint — see business broadband explained.
The application. A cloud system that is slow for everyone regardless of connection is a different problem.
One laptop. If a single machine is consistently poor and others in the same seat are fine, it is that machine.
A saturated uplink. An access point connected to the network by a slow or half-duplex link will underperform whatever the radio does.
Connect what you can with cable
Desk computers, printers, till systems, cameras and anything that does not move should be on cable. Every device removed from the wireless network is capacity returned to the devices that genuinely need it.
This is the cheapest wi-fi improvement available and it is routinely overlooked, because wireless is assumed to be the modern option rather than the option for things that move.
Guest access
Separate, isolated from your business network, with its own bandwidth limit so a visitor streaming video does not affect your staff. And a password that changes, or a captive portal — not the same passphrase given to every visitor since 2021.
Our infrastructure team surveys and installs business wireless across Suffolk and Norfolk, with verification after installation. Ask us to survey your building.
