How long does a real site survey take?

For a typical small office (5,000-15,000 sq ft, single floor) — half a day on-site, half a day analysis and report. Warehouses, hospitals, and multi-floor buildings take 1-3 days on-site.

Can I do a survey with a free app?

You can do a coarse coverage check with a free app on a phone. You cannot calibrate channel utilization, measure SNR at production-grade thresholds, or validate roaming with consumer tools. For anything mission-critical, use a calibrated survey platform.

What's the difference between predictive, passive, and active surveys?

Predictive surveys model the RF environment from a floor plan before any APs are installed. Passive surveys measure existing RF without associating to APs. Active surveys associate to the production SSID and measure throughput, latency, and roaming. A real engagement uses all three at different stages.

Resource · Checklist

WiFi Site Survey Checklist

What a real survey actually requires. Use this to scope your own engagement, write a vendor RFP, or check whether the survey you're being sold is the survey you're paying for.

Updated for 2026 · Covers WiFi 6 / 6E / 7

Pre-survey questionnaire

Business outcome: "We need WiFi" is not a goal. Capture: who uses it, what apps, what acceptable latency / throughput, what failure mode is unacceptable.
Coverage area: floor plan with dimensions, ceiling heights, construction (drywall vs. CMU vs. metal mesh), and explicit boundaries ("we do not need coverage in the boiler room").
Client device list: count + model + radio capability (WiFi 5 vs. 6 vs. 6E vs. 7). High-density rooms identified explicitly.
Existing infrastructure: existing AP make/model, existing controller, existing switching/PoE budget, existing cabling (Cat5e? Cat6? Cat6A?).
Regulatory and security: PCI-DSS? HIPAA? Guest network requirements? Captive portal? 802.1X capable client base?
Budget & timeline: not a number — a range and a drop-dead date.

On-site measurements

Passive RF sweep on all bands (2.4, 5, 6 GHz) at floor level and at intended client height. Capture: signal strength, SNR, channel utilization, co-channel and adjacent-channel interference.
Active survey against any existing production SSID — measure roaming behavior, throughput at three points per coverage zone, latency to gateway and to a known cloud endpoint.
Spectrum analysis with a real analyzer (not a card-based "spectrum" feature). Identify non-WiFi interferers: microwave, Bluetooth, video bridges, motion sensors.
Physical inspection of proposed AP mounting locations: drop ceiling vs. hard ceiling, drop height, PoE source distance (must be <90 m of horizontal cable), backhaul path.
Photograph everything. Future-you will need to know exactly what was there.

Analysis & design

Predictive model built from the floor plan, with proposed AP placements, channel plan, and power levels.
Coverage targets validated: –65 dBm minimum for voice/video, –70 dBm for general data, –75 dBm for IoT.
SNR targets: ≥25 dB voice, ≥20 dB data.
Cell overlap: 15-20% for roaming, never more than 30% (causes co-channel interference).
Capacity calculation: peak concurrent clients × average per-client throughput vs. cell capacity at the chosen modulation.

Deliverables

Annotated floor plan with proposed AP locations, model, mounting type, and channel/power.
Predictive heat map per band (2.4 / 5 / 6 GHz).
Bill of materials: APs, cabling, PoE switches/injectors, mounting hardware.
Configuration outline: SSIDs, VLANs, RADIUS/PSK plan, QoS markings, firmware target.
Post-install validation plan: how we will prove the design works after install.
Raw survey data files retained for one year minimum.

If you receive a "site survey" that's a one-page PDF and a price, you didn't get a site survey. You got a guess.

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Updated for 2026 standards

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