2020 in Review

Wow! Did That Just Happen?!

What a doozy! 2020 has been a horrendously difficult year for everyone. Just as we were expecting great things to happen: to attend many conferences; bring on many new clients; and initiate new trainings, COVID-19 hit us all.

The great thing is that, if you are reading this, you are still here. So are we. We count our lucky stars because many companies in our training industry are no longer in existence. From a personal perspective, our team remains intact as well. For that, we are ever grateful. For those who have experienced loss in 2020, please accept our deepest condolences.

In 2020, we continued our co-sponsorship of the WLA – the Wireless LAN Association, which is an association for professional wireless engineers. We support its mission of providing an amazing service in the Wireless Network community. The Association is in process of creating a set of peer-reviewed standards which is backed by some of the biggest names in the industry. Additionally, it aims to create an open a dialog between the regulators and manufacturers of wireless networking equipment and the “boots on the ground” – the engineers making everything work in harmony. (A few questions have arisen over the past year and we would like to take this opportunity to clear up any misconception: although our CEO, Rie Vainstein, serves WLA as its CEO, on a voluntary basis, NC-Expert has no other affiliation with WLA. NC-Expert does not own any part the Wireless LAN Association.)

Moving Quickly to Meet Demand

As you would expect, because of COVID, we had to move quickly to shift all our training to online platforms. This has worked really well, and our students are very happy with the results. Admittedly online training, albeit live, doesn’t quite have the same effect as in-person / in-classroom training – for instance, the instructors cannot look the student in the face and see the “Aha!” moment when the student understands a concept – but, using video helps a bit.

Our vendors, CompTIA, CWNP, Cisco, etc., all moved swiftly, too. They reformatted their exams to enable PearsonVUE to incorporate them into its “test from home” program. Prior to COVID, the only option available to students was to attend a PearsonVUE location in person, to sit the respective exams. Now the exams can all be taken from the comfort of your own homes. We are grateful to the vendors for jumping into action, for the benefit of the students, and getting the problems resolved so quickly.

Cisco renewed its entire portfolio in February, which caused some confusion, but the questions were eventually resolved, and our students are happily studying the updated materials. We have continued to spend a good portion of our year working diligently with Cisco (cisco.com), to author even more of its new portfolio of classes. We are extremely excited to see the various release dates coming closer and look forward to teaching many more students and helping them progress in their chosen careers!

We are looking forward to an exciting 2021, an end to the pandemic, and expect to create more innovations to help our students achieve their knowledge goals.

May we wish you a Healthy, Successful, and Happy New Year!

…

About NC-Expert

NC-Expert is a privately-held California corporation and is well established within the Wireless, Security, and Collaboration industry certification training, courseware development, and consulting markets.

Led by its Founder and CEO, Rie Vainstein, NC-Expert has won numerous private contracts with Fortune level companies around the world. These customers have depended on NC-Expert to train, advise, and mentor their staff.

If you are looking for the best in IT Network Training then call us today at (855) 941-2121 or contact us by email today.

The post 2020 in Review appeared first on NC Expert.

NC-Expert Blog

Wi-Fi Myth Series - Myth #12: Auto Channel Selection ALWAYS Knows Best

By Rie Morgan • August 28, 2026
Automatic Channel Selection sounds like one of those features we should simply be able to trust: the APs monitor the RF environment, the Controller gathers data, an Algorithm considers interference, utilization, neighboring APs, channel availability, and other metrics, then Radio Resource Management (RRM) does its “thing” and selects the best channels. Wonderful! One less problem for the wireless engineer to worry about... except RF rarely cooperates with anything quite that neatly! Modern RRM systems are remarkably capable, and automatic channel selection can dramatically simplify the management of large wireless environments, but an algorithm can only make decisions based on the information it collects, the parameters it has been given, and the objectives it has been designed to optimize. That makes automation a powerful engineering tool. It does not make it the engineer.

Wi-Fi Myth Series - Myth #11: Interference Is Always Someone Else’s Wi-Fi

By Rie Morgan • August 20, 2026
When Wi-Fi performance suddenly deteriorates, interference is often the first culprit to be suspected and, when this (interference) enters the conversation, attention tends to turn immediately toward neighboring Wi-Fi networks. “Someone must have installed another AP.” “The office next door is probably using our channel.” “There are too many SSIDs around here.” Sometimes, this diagnosis is exactly right, but RF interference has a much larger cast of characters than just neighboring APs. In fact, some of the most frustrating wireless problems occur when the interfering device isn’t speaking 802.11 at all! The spectrum doesn’t particularly care whether the energy occupying it came from an enterprise AP, a Bluetooth headset, a microwave oven, or something considerably stranger. To a Wi-Fi radio trying to communicate, unwanted RF energy is simply unwanted RF energy. Wi-Fi Has to Share the Neighborhood The 2.4 GHz band has always been something of an RF “community center”. Wi-Fi operates alongside Bluetooth, Zigbee and other technologies, while various consumer, industrial, medical, and electronic devices may also generate energy within or around the same spectrum. Microwave ovens are perhaps the most famous example. Their emissions can interfere with 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi, particularly when clients are operating nearby. Bluetooth devices, cordless equipment, wireless cameras, sensors, and other transmitters can also contribute RF energy. Some interferers transmit continuously. Others appear periodically. Some hop frequencies. Others produce wideband noise. That last category can be particularly entertaining to troubleshoot... in the very specific sense of “entertaining” that wireless engineers use when they have been staring at spectrum analysis for three hours! The important point is that interference doesn’t need to understand Wi-Fi to disrupt it.

Wi-Fi Myth Series - Myth #10: The AP Is Up, So the Wi-Fi Must Be Fine

By Rie Morgan • August 13, 2026
There is something wonderfully reassuring about seeing a row of green APs on a wireless dashboard: APs connected; radios operational; no obvious alarms; everything green. Excellent! The Wi-Fi must be fine... Except, of course, the users are complaining that Teams calls are breaking up, handheld scanners keep disconnecting, authentication takes forever, and someone in Accounting has discovered that turning Wi-Fi off and back on again temporarily fixes everything. Welcome to one of the more persistent myths in enterprise wireless: if the AP is up, the Wi-Fi must be working. An operational AP tells us something useful... but it tells us surprisingly little about the experience of the clients actually using the network. “Up” is an Infrastructure State When a monitoring platform reports that an AP is up, it usually means the infrastructure can communicate with it. It tells us: - the AP has power - its Ethernet connection is functioning - it may have established its management or CAPWAP connection - its radios are probably operational - it hasn't disappeared into the networking equivalent of a “black hole” ...all good things. But none of those things proves that a client can successfully use an application. Consider what still has to happen after the AP proudly announces its existence. A client must: discover the WLAN associate authenticate obtain the appropriate network configuration reach its default gateway resolve DNS access the required network resources, and maintain sufficient RF performance to exchange data reliably. Depending on the environment, that journey may involve: 802.1X RADIUS DHCP DNS VLANs ACLs firewalls roaming mechanisms upstream switching WAN connectivity cloud services ...and several other systems waiting for their opportunity to make your afternoon more “interesting”. ;-) The AP actually being operational is merely one part of that chain!