2026 UEN Tech Summit

How do you quickly prove it's not the Wi-Fi when the immediate response is to blame the Wi-Fi? I'm going to share some practical, cheap, or free tools to help you dial into the actual problem quickly, and why Speedtest may not be the best metric for testing your network.

Tools like Speedtest.net have become the de facto standard that our end users know to use to test when the network is working. This actually can be detrimental and unhelpful as a metric. New tools like the WLANPI and Orb.net are providing very cost-effective tools for determining how a network is performing without having to purchase expensive overlay networks. Tools that can be installed directly on an end-user device to get real-time performance metrics.

 Radio spectrum has typically been the bottleneck of dense WiFi networks, but the opening of the 6 GHz band has enormous potential for performance increase. This performance is dependent on client adoption of the new spectrum, not just infrastructure. We'll look at data indicating the need for additional spectrum and the roadblocks to adopting it.

WiFi is the main way that endpoints connect to campus networks, and dependence on these networks continues to increase for classroom and university operations. Latency-sensitive applications such as real-time voice and video are now integrated into classroom settings, and large venues are increasingly dependent on WiFi for student and fan engagement. These settings can be challenging due to dense client counts and channel re-use, and is compounded by the diversity of BYOD clients. Even with this understanding, WiFi is disproportionately blamed for disruptions, but it can be difficult to measure the state of current designs. We want to address these questions: How often do classrooms have high channel utilization? What is the impact of high channel utilization? Are current wireless designs adequate for modern use cases? How many WiFi devices does each person have? What is the impact of implementing 6 GHz infrastructure? What are the challenges of 6 GHz designs? What are the challenges of 6 GHz client adoption? How are visitor networks affected by this? We will review data from a project that attempted to answer some of these questions. (https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/10917/) Additionally, we will share observations from large venues with WiFi, such as LaVell Edwards Stadium, Marriott Center, and the BYU campus, as we have deployed 6 GHz infrastructure.

With the undisputed dependency on Wi-Fi connectivity on our campuses, there is an imminent need for proper tools to design and identify problems in our networks. I will cover what is available now and the best solutions.

 I will be explaining the best approaches to designing and troubleshooting Wi-Fi with the different tools available in the market now. I will have the tools and gear in the class to present the audience with some live demos and allow hands-on. Temporary licenses to some of these tools will be available.