* Research shows plenty of room for Wi-Fi improvement
Security issues – whether actual or perceived – remain the bane of wireless LAN implementers’ existence.
So say the respondents to the Kubernan/Webtorials 2007 Wireless LAN State-of-the-Market research, sponsored this year by Nortel. Respondents’ “insecurity” about wireless security has been a consistent primary research finding each of the four years that the study has been conducted.
Nearly 52% of 300 respondents, who are subscribers to the Webtorials networking education Web site and who play a role in their companies’ WLAN implementation, cited security as one of the two biggest challenges of building large-scale Wi-Fi deployments.
The next “biggest” challenge – reliability and stability concerns related to Wi-Fi’s use of unlicensed spectrum – didn’t garner even half as much attention (24%).
The issue seems to remain primarily one of education and training: Most users believe the technology and capabilities exist to keep their networks secure, but implementing wireless security is so complex and multidimensional, they don’t feel confident that they won’t leave a protective stone or two unturned.
That being said, enterprises are doing some things right: Nearly 38% have deployed Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2), which embodies the most current and most robust IEEE standard for Wi-Fi security, 802.11i. Thirty-six percent continue to use VPN technology over their Wi-Fi connections for protection and the same percentage has also implemented wireless virtual LANs (VLAN) to segregate user groups and applications. About 13% have deployed wireless intrusion detection/prevention (WIDP) overlay systems from a third party, while another 20% have deployed the WIDP capabilities embedded directly in their Wi-Fi system by their primary vendor.
Other key findings:
* Enterprise plans for adopting VoIP over Wi-Fi are all over the map.
* Enterprises are planning to wait for final standards ratification before deploying 802.11n networks.
* The degree of enterprise Wi-Fi backbone coverage seems out of sync with the percentage of employees that seem to have access.
For the details and a discussion of these and other Wi-Fi trends indicated by this year’s survey, tune me in, and listen to a Webcast in which I’m joined by Webtorials consultant Steven Taylor, Nortel’s director of enterprise wireless, Kyle Klassen, and plenty of accompanying figures and charts.
