Wi-Fi Site Surveys & Wireless Network Design in McAllen and the Rio Grande Valley

I'm Drew Lentz — most folks know me as the Wireless Nerd. I've spent 20+ years designing, surveying, and deploying wireless networks right here in South Texas, from downtown McAllen to the beach at South Padre. If you need Wi-Fi that actually works — in a warehouse, a school district, a stadium, a music festival, or an entire city — that's what I do. I'm CWNA-certified, a two-time Cambium Connectivity Hero, and the engineer behind McAllen's citywide network: 1,000+ access points and 24 CBRS base stations deployed in 60 days. My consulting work runs through Frontera Consulting, based in the Rio Grande Valley.

Wireless Site Surveys in South Texas

Good Wi-Fi starts before a single access point goes on the wall. I run predictive site surveys using Ekahau to model your building's RF environment — walls, interference, capacity, all of it — then validate with on-site heat mapping after deployment so you can see, in color, that the design works. Whether it's a pre-deployment survey for new construction, a validation survey for an existing network that's underperforming, or troubleshooting the conference room that drops every Zoom call, the process is the same: measure, don't guess.

Planning an event? Start with my free Event Wi-Fi Capacity Estimator — it gives you AP counts and bandwidth in thirty seconds.

Services

• Wi-Fi site surveys & RF design — Ekahau predictive design, on-site validation surveys, heat mapping, spectrum analysis, and troubleshooting for networks that were "installed" but never engineered.
• Enterprise WLAN deployment — design and installation of business-grade wireless for offices, schools, healthcare, hospitality, warehouses, and manufacturing. Vendor-agnostic: I recommend what fits, not what I'm paid to push.
• CBRS & fixed wireless — private LTE and CBRS networks for coverage where Wi-Fi runs out of steam: campuses, utilities, agriculture, and wide-area municipal deployments. I've put 24 CBRS base stations on air in one city — read the McAllen case study.
• Municipal & community broadband — planning and deployment of citywide and community networks, from RF design to real-world logistics of getting gear on poles and towers.
• Event & temporary Wi-Fi — festivals, concerts, sporting events, conferences, and venues across the Rio Grande Valley and South Texas. Real engineering for high-density crowds, with temporary internet delivery over fixed wireless, CBRS, and LTE when there's no fiber in sight.
• Wireless security assessment — rogue AP detection, WLAN penetration awareness, and hardening. I present on wireless security at BSidesRGV; I'll tell you exactly where your airspace is exposed.

Why Local Matters

Most "wireless site survey" outfits serving Texas are generalist IT shops in Dallas or Houston, or national firms that fly a tech in, plug in a laptop, and fly out. I live here. I know the buildings, the border-region RF environment, the heat, the humidity, and the people. When McAllen needed a citywide network stood up in 60 days — 1,000+ APs, 24 CBRS base stations — I was on the ground doing it, not managing it from an office three hundred miles away. Same story during Hurricane Harvey, when getting communities reconnected earned me my first Connectivity Hero award. When something breaks, I'm minutes away, not a plane ticket.

Service Area — McAllen, Edinburg, Brownsville & Beyond

I'm based in the Rio Grande Valley and work throughout McAllen, Edinburg, Mission, Pharr, Brownsville, Harlingen, and the surrounding communities — plus South Padre Island, Laredo, and the Coastal Bend. For the right project, I travel statewide and nationally; I present at WLPC and serve as a Tech Field Day delegate, so I'm on the road plenty. If it's an interesting wireless problem, distance is negotiable.

Let's Talk

If your Wi-Fi is slow, your coverage is spotty, or you're planning a build and want it done right the first time, reach out. Engagements run through Frontera Consulting, and the first conversation is always free — bring me your floor plans and your complaints, and I'll tell you straight what it'll take to fix.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does a wireless site survey cost?

It depends on square footage, building complexity, and whether you need a predictive design, an on-site validation, or both. Small offices are a fraction of what a warehouse or multi-building campus runs. Send me a floor plan and I'll give you a straight quote — no site-unseen flat rates, because that's how bad designs happen.

How does a site survey actually work?

For a predictive survey, I build an RF model of your space in Ekahau using your floor plans and materials, then design AP placement, channels, and power for your capacity needs. For validation, I walk the site with professional survey gear and generate heat maps showing real signal, noise, and throughput. You get a report you can hand to any installer — or I'll handle the deployment myself.

Do you travel outside the Rio Grande Valley?

Yes. Most of my work is in McAllen, Edinburg, Mission, Pharr, Harlingen, and Brownsville, but I take projects across Texas and nationally when the fit is right — especially event Wi-Fi, CBRS/private LTE, and municipal broadband work.