An enterprise Wi-Fi network now drops 98% fewer connections
A Quebec fashion and apparel company ran 300+ wireless access points on several sites and logged about 500 Wi-Fi connection failures an hour. We found 40 causes and fixed them in under 3 days.
Client
A fashion and apparel company
Not named, by agreement with the client
- Sector
- Fashion and Apparel
- Size
- Thousands of staff, several sites
- Where
- Quebec
- Duration
- Rollout in under 3 days
The results
Fewer Wi-Fi connection failures
Critical issues found and fixed
Access points on one configuration
To roll it out across every site
What was the problem?
Staff lost their Wi-Fi in the middle of calls and file transfers, some laptops couldn't join at all, and the wireless LAN controller logged about 500 connection failures an hour, roughly 12,000 a day. The vendor had seen the logs and sent specialists on site twice. Each round brought new settings to try, and none of them moved the numbers.
About the client
A Canadian fashion and apparel company with thousands of staff on several Quebec sites. Its IT team runs the enterprise wireless network across every building and floor.
500 Wi-Fi connection failures an hour
Staff were dropped mid-task and between floors, and some devices never connected, so the Wi-Fi connectivity issues reached every site.
Vendor support closed the case
After several escalations with full logs and two on-site visits, the vendor found nothing wrong in the access points and blamed the wired network instead.
Hundreds of Wi-Fi tickets
Wi-Fi complaints filled the help desk queue every week, and staff stopped trusting the wireless network enough to rely on it for real work.
What did we change?
We stopped guessing and read the data. Every error the controller logged was tied to an access point, a time and a cause, and the noise turned into a list of 40 issues behind almost 99% of the drops. We fixed each one, then brought more than 300 access points under one configuration, rolled out in under 3 days with no new hardware.
Wi-Fi troubleshooting from the logs
We grouped thousands of daily log entries by access point and cause, audited each configuration and firmware version, and checked channels and RF interference at every site.
One configuration for every access point
Settings that had drifted apart on each access point moved into one centrally managed baseline, so security and radio policy is now the same everywhere.
Network automation we built ourselves
Our in-house AI systems, trained for this kind of work, pushed the new configuration to every access point on every floor, with no engineer sent site to site.
What we worked with
- Wireless LAN controller
- Enterprise access points
- SMEnode AI network automation
- Centralised log monitoring
How did the work run?
Step 1 · Log analysis
Read every log
We sorted the controller's error logs by access point, time and cause, and audited every configuration.
Step 2 · Remediation plan
Fix the 40 issues
Each critical issue got a root cause and a fix, ranked by how many drops it caused.
Step 3 · Under 3 days
Roll out and watch
One configuration reached every access point at every site, and the logs confirmed the drop.
- Led by
- Saeid Ghobadi, CCIE Data Center
What changed for them?
Wi-Fi connection failures fell from about 500 an hour to fewer than 10, a 98% drop, as logged by the wireless LAN controller. The hundreds of Wi-Fi tickets stopped. Every access point now runs one configuration managed from one place, and no hardware was replaced to get there. Problems now show up in the logs before staff notice them.
Before
Wi-Fi connection failures per hour
~500
Critical issues on the access points
40
Wi-Fi tickets
Hundreds
How access points are configured
One by one, settings drifting apart
How problems are found
When staff complained
After
Wi-Fi connection failures per hour
<10
Logged by the wireless LAN controller
Critical issues on the access points
0
All 40 fixed, the cause of about 99% of drops
Wi-Fi tickets
Gone
No longer a help desk issue
How access points are configured
One configuration, managed centrally
How problems are found
Continuous log monitoring
What would we do differently?
We'd go to the logs ourselves first. The early effort went to vendor escalations and two site visits, and each one ended with settings to try rather than a cause. The 40 issues only showed up once every log entry sat in one view, grouped by access point, time and cause. On large Wi-Fi networks, that log review now comes before any setting change or vendor ticket.
“Our Wi-Fi used to be the thing staff complained about every day. Now nobody talks about it, which is exactly how it should be, and we didn't replace a single access point to get there.”
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