Coverage

You must perform a voice quality site survey to ensure adequate network coverage prior to installing Vocera to ensure network coverage.

If your site was not surveyed to meet the specific needs of Vocera, you will probably need to extend your coverage due to the following reasons:

The badge is used in physical locations that are frequently ignored by a site survey because they are irrelevant to traditional notebook computer use. Such locations include stairwells, elevators, break rooms, closets, and outside the front door.
Vocera has different tolerance for errors and delays than data. For more information, refer to Voice and Data Applications.
The antenna in the badge behaves differently than the antennas typically used to perform site surveys. For more information, refer to Minimum Signal Strength.

You should perform a site survey as an initial step in determining appropriate network coverage. However, you must perform the additional tasks described in this section to ensure that your network coverage is adequate for Vocera.

To confirm site survey coverage for Vocera, perform the following:

Set AP power levels comparable to the transmit power of the Vocera badge. For more information, refer to Power.
Ensure that you have adequate signal strength for the Vocera badge throughout your facility. For more information, refer to Minimum Signal Strength.
Ensure that the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is greater than 25 dB with a noise floor of -90db.
Use the Vocera badge in survey mode to confirm proper coverage and ensure voice quality throughout your facility. For more information, refer to Acceptable Voice Quality.
Use the appropriate subset of channels, based on the frequency band:
- For 5 GHz, do not use either the Dynamic Frequency Selection channels (52,56,60,64,100,104,108,112,116,128,132,136,140) or channel 165. Use all other available channels.
- For 2.4 GHz, use only channels 1, 6, and 11 to maintain adequate channel separation. For more information, refer to Channel Separation.
Ensure that the channels you enable in the wireless controller match the channels you specify in the B3N.ChannelsToScan5G, B3N.ChannelsToScan, and B3.ChannelsToScan properties in the badge.properties file. For more information, refer to Vocera Device Configuration Guide
Ensure that the coverage cells for all access points overlap sufficiently while maintaining separation between access points on the same channel. For more information refer to Overlapping Cells.
Minimize co-channel interference. For more information, refer to Channel Interference.