Performance Analysis of WiFi Hotspot Network in Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka

Abstract

This work centres on the study of campus wifi hotspot networks in Nigeria universities, using the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka as a case study. A Campus Wide Area Network (CWN) provides a means of communication and collaboration in data intensive environments. These are vital key factors to building a strong knowledge culture and facilitating collaborative research for any educational institution. Network stumbler (Wifi Network Analyzer) and Iperf were installed on different laptop computers in the respective Access Points (AP) while being monitored from a dedicated server running on Mikrotik and wireshark. This was used in collecting useful data needed for the characterisation of the UNIZIK wifi hotspot network in terms of Received signal strength index (RSSI), Data throughput and latency/network delay. The AP distance from user is carefully measured with a meter tape. Performance analysis carried out on this university wifi hotspots shows that the network offers a delay of 0.1545s by default that increases by a factor of 0.001s; a data throughput of 37.30Mbps that decreases by a factor of 0.25Mbps for any user added to the network. Also, that an RSSI of -35.438dBm was obtained at the AP base station which decreases by a factor of 0.4925dBm for any 1m distance away from the APand finally that a traditional hotspot networks based on IEEE 802.11 series lacks integrated intelligence for services convergence, QoS performance and in most cases suffers from interoperability problem