Understanding Wi-Fi topology is dead simple, right? You set up an access point, give the network a name and then connect clients to it. Well, it stays that simple right up to the point you need another AP for more coverage, roaming or capacity, or you need to set up more SSIDs on your APs for different departments, users or guests. One of the inherently cool things about Wi-Fi, IMO, is that it can be scaled and customized this way for your needs by creating Extended Service Sets (ESS) as well as using multiple SSIDs. It’s an awesome example of interconnected cooperation.

How do you know which AP is which? Which network is which?

While these are great—and incredibly necessary—features of Wi-Fi, having multiple SSIDs broadcast from the same radios in multiple APs can get a tad confusing when using Wi-Fi tools. Multiply this by tens, hundreds or thousands of access points in your deployment and it gets complex, to say the least. Additionally, let’s suppose you are not familiar with how the network is set up and you are troubleshooting a problem, or are working on it in some way. In this situation especially, you need all the help you can get to make sense of the scenario.

Chanalyzer 5 now groups by ESSID or by Radio

Taking a cue from inSSIDer 4, Chanalyzer now displays ESSID schemes from the data reported from your wireless NIC. That is, when grouping by “Radio” is selected, it groups them to show which SSIDs are being broadcasted from which APs, which and how many BSSIDs are associated to it and which channels they are using.

Group by Radio

When group by “ESSID” is selected, Chanalyzer gives the number of BSSIDs and the channels they are on.

Group by ESSID

In short, it shows you the lay of the WLAN. It’s a simple yet powerful feature that we hope helps you make sense of large WLANs. Download it, grab your Wi-Spy and try it out!

Mark Jensen, Product Hacker