A white paper from Cisco Systems acts as a design guide for Voice over Wireless LAN systems. While the guide assumes the client is the Cisco Unified Wireless IP Phone 7921G, it also states that "any voice device that is WiFi certified will run on the Cisco Unified Wireless Network." In general, it adds, the guide's design principles apply to all 802.11a/b/g voice clients, but deployments to third-party phones will have important differences.
The paper establishes and explains eight steps to successful VoWLAN deployment, including the purpose for each step, as follows.
- Definition. Define what voice applications and clients will be deployed and who the stakeholders are.
- Coverage areas and project phases. Define what areas within the campus will support voice on the wireless network.
- Plan approval. Gain buy-in of all key stakeholders.
- RF audit and site survey. Validate and adjust design.
- Deploy infrastructure. Implement design.
- RF test. Test implementation on deployed infrastructure.
- Final adjustments. Adjust access point settings.
- Ongoing operation support. Transition to sustaining support with adaptation to usage changes.
In addition to those eight steps, the guide covers topics including voice-capacity planning, Layer 2 and Layer 3 roaming, quality-of-service considerations and wireless-security best practices.
Download the design guide from Cisco Systems.
You may also be interested in the article Test and Measurement Throughout the Wireless LAN Lifecycle, authored by Carolyn Carter of Fluke Networks.