In the sales activity of my Company the requests of quotations for Wifi Point to Point connection (often called Wifi bridge connection) are now business as usual. For this reason a distributor (but also a reseller) must develop a best practice to answer in an effective way.

The Basic Questions.
Like in the best practice How to select the best CPE: best practice for inside sales, I would proceed with the method of questions and answers. This allows to keep  a ‘business’ rhythm and in meantime to separate the main points.

D1. Can the two Access point (AP)  see each other?
The first step in a WIFI point-to-point connection is to check if the two access point can see each other. This means that there must be no fix obstacle between the two access points.  You can do this text quite easily:  fix a red ribbon on in the possible highest place in the first place then go in the second place and still from the highest point check if you can see the ribbon.  Remember that the obstacle can be a temporary one (for example a big bus passing in a road between the two AP). So, even if the two AP can see each other, place them at the highest point you can.

D2. What is the distance betrween the two AP?
This measure will influence the choice of your Wifi solutions. You don’t need to make complex measures; you can use an easy tool like Google Maps Distance Calculator.

D3. What Wifi Protocol are you going to use?
The technology offers you the choice between 4 protocols.
Usually, in the Wifi bridge connection speed is not the most critical element. Anyway, in case you need high speed (higher than 50Mbs) only the new protocol N can offer you this performance but you need to have the possibility to place at least two antenna’s.
The choice of the protocol will determine the frequency of the AP and this is an important element for the distance that your solution will cover (see D4).
Also the number of available channels is not a critical element but it could become useful in the case there is interference of other Accesss Points placed in the patch to cover.
Last but not least, the choice of protocol influences the cost of the AP.
Table 1 offers a quick comparison of the 4 protocols.

D4. Do you need one (or more) external antenna’s?
The distance that your AP can cover depends of the power of the AP, the Receiver Sensitivity, the frequency of the protocol and the gain of the antenna (transmitting and receiving).
All these parameters, fortunately, are reported in the datasheet of the AP.  A best practice is to help your inside sales to manage these data in a effective way. We use a simple Distance configurator Excel file - .
 

D5. What kind of external antenna to choose?
Ok. The standard antenna supplied with your AP it is not enough to cover the distance between the two spots. What kind of antenna can you choose?
Usually a Semi-directional antenna is enough.  On the market you will find a Patch/Panel and a Yagi Antenna. You can still use the Configurator Excel file of D3 to select which one suits you.
In very rare cases (to cover distance until 42Km) you would need a Highly-Directional Antenna (Parabolic Dish).
An external antenna means also cables to connect it to the AP. On the market there are different types of connectors for the AP, for the cable and for antenna. There are also cables that works only at 2.4 GHz and others (more expensive) that works also at 5Ghz.
In our best practice we sacrificed the “pure” technical solutions in favor of simplicity and speed of configuration. We reduced in this way the possible combinations even if it costs, probably, 4/5 euro more that ad hoc solution.  On the other part, we save a lot of time of our inside sales and expensive RMA for always possible mistakes. Also in this case we use a simple Connector Configurator Excel file - for all the AP we have in our portfolio.
Usually the AP are not supplied standard with a mount or pole kit; remember to insert it in your quotation.

D6.  Do you need a certified IP-68 AP ?
The professional Outdoor AP are build in waterproof material. For extreme conditions, it would be better to have an IP-68 certified AP. In some public request (Hospital, Region, Military,etc) this kind of request can be mandatory.

D7. Do you need a Site Survey?
In D1 you made a visual inspection of the places. One thing that you cannot anyway test is the presence of interferences. In the path, it could be a small building that doesn’t stop the signal but that produces frequency interference (for example it uses AP too).  It could be also existing bridge connections that could create interference. Should you do a Site Survey?
To do it,  you need to have available as test demo the same configuration. This would be too expensive to provide, both for the reseller that eventually for the distributor.
You would discover the eventual problem in the moment of the installation. In that case, it could be enough just to change the channel of transmission to solve the problem. In the worst case, you need to work in a different frequency or change the path (but in this case you need further AP); in both cases, you have to propose a different configuration. So, the best practice is to warn the end user that the final solution could change based on the result of the installation and to have a very good relationship with your distributor in order to change the solution (remember to keep the original boxes for the RMA  .

This is our best practice for Outdoor AP bridge connection. What is yours?