Have you ever view of having an all wireless office? Do you think it is not potential at this point/ it is not practical? If your reply to that interrogate is yes, then you need to read this narrative for sure.
Let us look at the reverse situation first: What could possibly be the advantages of wired networks over wireless networks? Well, the immediate points that comes to our mind could be the following:
1. Speed. Wireless networks are carefully to be slow and having a low bandwidth.
2. Real time applications. Wireless networks cannot deal with real time applications like voice and video.
3. Security. The wireless signals reach even across the road. What if man hacks in to my network?
4. Incompatibility: inescapable devices like printers etc. Are not Wi-Fi enabled. The Pc does not have Wi-Fi cards.
Let us look at each point individually (I am writing this narrative in the point of view of an enterprise/office network, and hence I am assuming that the Wi-Fi network is built using Wireless Controllers, way Points and administration Software)
Speed:
Wired networks had a decent speed of 100 Mbps and these days have a speed of 1000 Mbps. Wireless networks only have a speed of 54 Mbps and that too is shared among many users.
Give me one application which would take up 1000 Mbps per port, or even 100 Mbps per port and then probably I could accept the above statement. The fact is, even if your office runs demanding applications like multimedia, Erp, video etc, the maximum bandwidth requirement per user may not cross even 4 Mbps! Now take the 54 Mbps of Wi-Fi networks and assume that 15 citizen are connecting to it, each user may get around 2.5 Mbps, which is sufficient for most of the applications that we have today, and if all the 15 users don't associate at the same time, a single user might get even more bandwidth. In fact, with the arrival of 802.11n acceptable for Wi-Fi, the bandwidth available per way point is around 300 Mbps and will touch 600 Mbps in the near future. So, even if 15 citizen associate with one 802.11n way point, they might get in excess of 20 Mbps, which is more than sufficient for most of the applications on the network today.
Real Time Applications:
What if I run Pc based video conferencing in my company? Can the wireless networks deal with real time traffic?
A decent video conferencing client may not take more than 256-384 Kbps for giving 30 f/s ability video with H.264 compression. How many such conferences are going to happen simultaneously? And real time applications run very well if your wireless controller can hold Wmm - Wireless Multi Media protocol which prioritize the real time traffic over the normal traffic, and most of the controllers today hold it. Even voice is supported on the wireless Lan - together with the seamless handover from one Ap to another, if you are carrying the VoWlan handsets. There is an moving technology that is growing fast, which is called Fmc - Fixed movable Convergence where your Ip Phones and Cell phones can be integrated with a single movable handset and you have one number for both. Though Ip Land line Phones are not supported by Wireless Networks, such innovations (Like Fmc and VoWlan handsets for voice over wireless Lan) help include further features as well as give the basic service much more efficiently.
Security
The wireless signals can jab the walls and in fact go across the road - what if some one hacks my network?
This is a valid concern. The safety is compromised if your wireless communications are not encrypted with the newest standards and allowable safety policies are not applied. But if the safety policies are applied according to the newest standards (like 802.11i etc), then the chances of breaking the network from covering is very less. Also, there are Wireless Intrusion prevention software's that are available in the market these days which keep scanning for wireless threats and intrusions and they acquaint or even thwart attempts to intrude in to your wireless network automatically.
Incompatibility:
There are inescapable devices that are not yet Wi-Fi compatible - like inescapable printers, fax machines etc. But you will be surprised at how many devices are Wi-Fi compliant and have commercially ready Wi-Fi based products already - guard Cameras, Multi-Function Devices, way operate Card readers, Laptops, Projectors and approximately every network based gadget has a Wi-Fi compliant model. Even if inescapable products are not Wi-Fi compliant, cables could be drawn selectively for those applications alone, instead of wiring the whole office with three ports per cubicle! In fact, Wireless way Points need to be associated to Lan cables at the back end, so a exiguous number of wired switch ports is anyway required. And there are all the time Usb based Wi-Fi adaptors that can be used to make a desktop computer (Pc) wireless.
So, having established that wired networks are not inherently classic to current generation wireless networks, let us now look at the further advantages that wireless networks supply over wired networks :
Less Cost - recovery not only in the quantity of cables, switch ports required but also in the cost of passive components.
Comfort and Mobility - The wireless networks are accessible everywhere - even in the canteen and the lawn. All you need is a Wi-Fi enabled laptop to way them. And the users can associate to the network from everywhere - cubicles, discussion rooms, lawns etc.
Redundancy: If an way Point fails, another neighbouring way point can automatically associate the users (without having to convert the port connection manually like in wired networks).
Network way control, Ad integration: The centralized administration functionality of the wired networks using Active Directory (or Ldap etc) is available with most of the wireless networks today. In fact, controller based wireless networks can also supply network way operate - grouping the users and choosing which users have way to which resources in the network (Restricting inescapable users from accessing the internet, etc).
Load balancing: The way points can automatically push the users to neighbouring way points if they are overloaded. Some controllers even allow to restrict the bandwidth that a single user/group can way in the Lan, so that they don't overload the network.
There are many more, but if you want to discuss further on the same or on any single topic, hop over to our blog. There is a whole category on wireless networks!
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