802.11n: Hot technology for 2009

The 'n' stands for now

It's been a long time coming, but 802.11n is finally here. And that means wireless LANs now are a viable replacement for wired LANs.

Without delving too deeply into the past, we all remember the war-driving horror stories: buggy Wired Equivalent Privacy implementations, 802.11b technology that promised 10Mbps but barely delivered 5Mbps, 802.11g technology that promised 50Mbps but barely delivered 20Mbps, and prolonged standards battles over 802.11n.

Yes, Wi-Fi technology has been a tad disappointing. On the other hand, we have come to expect and appreciate wireless networks in our homes, coffee shops, airports and hotels. And employees, particularly younger ones, impatiently await the wireless workplace.

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It's been a long time coming, but 802.11n is finally here. And that means wireless LANs now are a viable replacement for wired LANs.

Without delving too deeply into the past, we all remember the war-driving horror stories: buggy Wired Equivalent Privacy implementations, 802.11b technology that promised 10Mbps but barely delivered 5Mbps, 802.11g technology that promised 50Mbps but barely delivered 20Mbps, and prolonged standards battles over 802.11n.

Yes, Wi-Fi technology has been a tad disappointing. On the other hand, we have come to expect and appreciate wireless networks in our homes, coffee shops, airports and hotels. And employees, particularly younger ones, impatiently await the wireless workplace.

In Network World's groundbreaking test of 802.11n access points and controllers, 802.11n technology delivered impressive data rates of 250Mbps per access point. In addition, it delivered solid performance numbers on latency and jitter, which means it can support such real-time applications as voice and video. The systems we tested had a variety of enterprise-level features, such as Power over Ethernet; dynamic radio-frequency control; QoS; and such security functions as intrusion prevention and detection, Wi-Fi Protected Access 2, and stateful firewalls.

When it comes to new construction, 802.11n should be the default choice. The choice gets tricky, however, when it comes to existing networks. If you already have some 802.11a/b/g/, keep in mind that running a mixed network will result in significantly reduced bandwidth. In our tests, mixed-mode throughput was 24% of the throughput in an all-802.11n network.
Nevertheless, no matter how you decide to roll it out, 802.11n is ready for the enterprise.

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