* Users open up to new Wi-Fi architectures; waver on voice
The latest Webtorials Wireless LAN State-of-the-Market Report reveals that enterprises appear open to embracing new architectures, particularly mesh, and that their plans for voice deployment remain consistently iffy (pardon the oxymoron).
Let’s start with architectures. I’m going to call mesh a “sub-architecture,” because whether a given vendor’s architecture is centralized, distributed or a hybrid of the two, it still might allow communications to happen in an over-the-air mesh configuration, from access point to access point, sans cabling.
Most of the 272 respondents (61%) to the Webtorials WLAN state-of-the-market survey, conducted in the final quarter of 2009 and sponsored by Ruckus Wireless, are using and plan to continue using thin, or dependent, APs with a centralized controller for the immediate future. Still, nearly a third (32%) plan to use Wi-Fi mesh regardless of whether their system architecture uses controllers or not.
More than three-fourths of respondents (77%) indicated an interest in mesh, describing the capabilities as essential, very important or somewhat important. Indeed, mesh enables enterprises to reduce costly cabling in the “middle” of their Wi-Fi networks, regardless of whether the networks are indoors, outdoors or both.
And, finally, controller-less architectures — those with distributed, smart APs with centralized management — have moved up in the ranks. They weighed in third behind the thin-AP model and mesh with 29% of respondents using or planning to use controller-less products.
I’m still trying to get my arms around enterprise intentions for voice over WLANs. For the six years we’ve been conducting this research, current and planned usage for VoWLAN has hovered at slightly more than a third. This year, we actually saw a drop from 37% in 2008 to 30% in 2009 in the percentage of respondents that said they had already implement VoWLAN.
The luck of the draw of the respondent mix is probably one factor. However, other factors could be the rise of new in-building cellular options and carrier plans and the fact that the Wi-Fi Alliance has not yet launched its Voice-Enterprise certification program.
If you can spare a second and you haven’t deployed VoWLAN, drop me a line and tell me why. Is it too expensive to build out Wi-Fi to every nook and cranny for the required coverage? Don’t use Wi-Fi-enabled phones? Don’t trust VoWLAN performance or reliability? Waiting for Wi-Fi certified voice products? You tell me.
Meanwhile, to access the report free of charge, visit here (registration required).
