Most vendors offer online coursework as well as classroom sessions. Study the content and familiarize yourself with the terminology, along with the most common pitfalls. It’s to your advantage to take training classes from more than one manufacturer. Doing so will increase your breadth of understanding about the available technologies and products, plus you’ll learn additional installation best practices from other integrators. It is not magic. It just requires some practice.

Since wireless equipment is often installed on towers or rooftops, lightning is a common problem and you need to know how to safeguard against it. Hence, it will be requisite that you take a grounding and surge suppression class, since this is one of the most common causes of equipment failure. The basic setup to resolve this issue is to use shielded Ethernet cables and deploy in-line surge suppressors at the top, close to the wireless device, and at the bottom, close to the switch or the head-end equipment. A poorly installed system could easily cost you all of your profit on the job and turn the project into a company loss.

In addition, it is also important that you have at least one person on your team who has an in-depth understanding of networking. Regardless of the wireless manufacturer you pick, all the radios require a solid understanding of IP and networking. When you decide to join the wireless revolution, it will be necessary to keep up to date with all the requirements and restrictions imposed by the FCC on the use of wireless on any given frequency band.

Features like DFS (dynamic f
requency selection) and probe rate, and parameters such as EIRP (equivalent isotropically radiated power) are designed to make a wireless network compliant with all FCC regulations. Moreover, you will also want to stay abreast of FCC regulations because new pieces of the spectrum may open up for specific applications, including public safety, smart grids, last-mile connectivity and others. If you want to be competitive in this space, you need to know the rules that regulate it.

Upon completing all necessary education and training, it’s probably best to start with a small- to medium-sized job when working with wireless for the first time. Once you get your feet wet and are familiar with the technology, you can then expand to more challenging and complex wireless networks.

Take it step by step and make sure that once you have a knack for it, keep your team practicing and up to speed with product development and training coursework. After all, like everything else in life, installing wireless is a game of practice. The more you do it, the better you become. The better you become, the more projects you are going to take away from your competition.

Cosimo Malesci is Co-founder and Vice President of Boston-based Fluidmesh Networks.

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