Can we use a Mesh Network for Wifi in our church?
Once a week or so, someone asks me if they can install a Mesh WiFi system in their church. They work great in their home, so they must be great at church, right?
Wrong! Mesh Systems are very poorly suited for your church. And? They’re going to fail you at the most critical moments.
First I’ll explain why, then I’ll explain what you should do instead (for as little as a thousand dollars).
Here’s the basic thing you have to understand: the radio spectrum that makes Wifi work? It’s crowded. There are radio waves bouncing all around a room at any given time. WiFi is doing that, too, in a very specific spectrum of frequencies.
Now, if you only want to connect two or three things, no problem. Even basic, old WiFi technology can probably do that. And on a Tuesday morning in your sanctuary, that’s probably good enough.
But on a Sunday morning, when everyone brings a cell phone…all the sudden you have fifty or a hundred devices periodically pinging your WiFi. Whether or not they are allowed to connect to your WiFi network, they are still creating signal in that limited WiFi spectrum.
So long story short: Technically, it’s really, really hard to make Wifi reliably connect to dozens of devices at the same time. It’s possible, obviously. Convention centers do it. Hotels do it. It’s possible, but it’s hard.
So now we come to the problem with Mesh systems: they use twice (or more) as much WiFi spectrum. Their radio has to connect to a given cell phone, sure. But then, to connect the Mesh repeater to the actual internet…it has another radio connecting to another device in the Mesh network. So it’s using up twice as much radio bandwidth. Now, at your house, that’s probably OK. Given modern technology, and the few people in your home at any given time, that will work.
And it would work in a church most of the time.
But on a Sunday morning? You’ve just taken a problem that was already hard (make your WiFi stuff work while a hundred cell phones are in the room) and doubled your problem. THAT is why a Mesh system is a bad idea in a church.
Have you ever had your phone tell you that you had a strong signal, but pages wouldn’t load? Yeah. That’s what will happen on Sunday morning with a mesh system.
So what’s the solution?
You want to use (2) technologies that aren’t much more expensive than mesh. First, you want to run wires to your “access points.” (Access points are just the radios that make your WiFi system work). Those wires mean your access points are connected directly to your router with a nice, reliable CAT5 or CAT6 wire. Cheap, and simple!
Then, you just want your Access Points to use something called MIMO. That’s a fancy technology that makes Access Points better at connecting with lots of devices at once.
An Access Point with the cable visible
You can learn about that, or I can just tell you the answer: buy Unifi equipment.
Unifi’s networking gear is relatively cheap (for enterprise level stuff). It’s shockingly powerful. It’s easy to use. Basically, it gives churches access to near-enterprise-grade equipment for not much more than a Wifi Mesh system. Depending on a few things, and how many access points you need, the gear I usually install begins around $900 USD (with 2 access points).
Want to discuss options for your church? We’d love to help you think through what this might mean for your community, and get your reliable WiFi. Your ability to connect with your community relies on WiFi, so let’s make it work!
