3Com Speeds Up

3Com finally arrived at the gigabit Ethernet party being thrown by small businesses everywhere. Although lagging behind other SMB favorites such as Linksys and Netgear and even HP, at least 3Com appeared.

When early gigabit switches appeared in the small business space, they tended to have one gigabit port for a server and 10/100 megabits per second ports for users. If your users do little besides e-mail and office productivity applications, that may still be fine. However, anyone doing audio or video file manipulation, or moving large files around regularly, will appreciate the advantages of a gigabit swtch.

All servers now have gigabit ports, although you may see them listed as 10/100/1000 megabit ports. Almost all Network Attached Storage devices, even those you buy for only a few hundred dollars, have gigabit ports. Many desktop PCs the last few years have gigabit ports, although they remain rare on laptops.

If you haven't looked at your wiring support devices in a few years, you may be embarrassed at the weak and slow network in your business. Gigabit networking no longer means expensive networking. Upgrade your switch and wiring hubs, or replace those with switches, and speed up your network response for everyone.

• SMB
• 3Com
• Gigabit Ethernet
• HP
• Linksys
• Netgear