Introduction
AirMobile Installer is a free application that transforms your Android phone into a Wi-Fi verification tool. It allows you to measure and log the Wi-Fi network performance in different locations. Then, you can easily create reports that give you an overview of your network’s quality, like in the example below
The above picture shows the AirMobile Cloud that stores AirMobile Installer App reports. The service can be purchased here
Two primary usage scenarios are:
- Network installation – access points focused. The verification is a part of the installation process.
- Room survey – place focused. Each location is tagged with District/Site/Project/Room information.
Let’s see how we use the application
Data acquisition
Connect your phone to the Wi-Fi network you want to verify, start the AirMobile application, click on “RUN TEST” button; after a few seconds you should see a screen that looks like this:
The top four parameters are Transmit Rate, RSSI, Target 1 and 2 RTT.
Transmit Rate
Is the transmit rate that your phone used during the test. Note: this is a data rate at which the packets have been sent, not throughput. The higher the better.
RSSI
Is the signal strength of the access point that your phone has been connected to. Typically, values higher than -65dBm is considered good.
Target 1 and 2 RTT
Show the ICMP response times from two destinations; the first of them is typically a local gateway and the second a chosen node, usually on the Internet. In this case, the lowest the better. Depending on the network layout, the local gateway RTT is expected to be in the range of a few milliseconds. Values over 100 milliseconds are almost always too high.
These are additional test parameters, grouped in the Network Info and Coverage boxes, like below.
Network info
Channel shows the Wi-Fi channel for the access point your phone is connected to.
SSID is the network name.
BSSID shows the MAC address of the access point your phone is connected to. If this is the strongest or the second strongest available access point terms Primary AP or Secondary AP are used.
Authentication displays the security mechanism of the Wi-Fi network.
Radio displays the standard of the Wi-Fi network.
Coverage is the table listing the two strongest access points in the network. Their RSSI, channel, and BSSID are presented. Tag (A) is shown next to the access point your phone is associated with.
Uploading data (requires cloud services)
Click on the “GENERATE A REPORT“ to upload the measurement data to the AirMobile cloud. You can also add a photo to every measurement.
In our example, rooms 1-7 were verified. Only the measurement from room 4 has a lower data rate of 216Mbps, caused by lower signal strength of -67dBm. However, the round trip times from both targets remain good at 2 and 5ms respectively.