* Total cable elimination will prove difficult
I often hear buzz about the “all-wireless enterprise,” mostly from wireless system vendors who imply that the total annihilation of network cabling is imminent. Can you imagine a day when all the network cables in your organization have disappeared?
Well, it’s true that the components that would enable an all-wireless network have been emerging over the years. Eventually, a combination of Wi-Fi, mesh technology, Bluetooth, ultrawideband (UWB) and some iteration of cellular (mobile WAN) technologies could bring us pretty darn close. Blending these all together would cover traditional wireless user access, machine-to-machine communications, and even communication between different wireless network types. But getting there will be a challenge.
Becoming all wireless, I think, will take a while, particularly in core network segments. Among the issues: comparative performance to wired Ethernet, the need for end-to-end security that runs over multiple network infrastructure types without introducing latency and messing up real-time LAN application performance, and unpredictable interference, which also degrades performance. In addition, all networked devices, including servers, core switches, and nontraditional devices now joining the network such as IP surveillance equipment – would require wireless interfaces. Many of the interfaces would be different technologies, for which IT staff will require training.
What will likely happen first is that, over time, as client devices get replaced and networks upgraded, the corporate access network – that “last-yard” connection to corporate resources – will be the network segment to become entirely untethered, primarily using Wi-Fi. I suspect that an “all-wireless access network” is what most people mean when they refer to an “all-wireless enterprise.”
Forthcoming 802.11n networks do promise at least twice the theoretical top speeds of today’s 54Mbps networks, making Wi-Fi perhaps more comparable to traditional wired Ethernet for end-user connections and, possibly, some distribution-to-core network connections. But in most larger networks, the wired core network, which does the heavy lifting, will likely prevail for quite some time.
That’s my opinion – what’s yours? Do you have plans to eventually be “all wireless,” and, if so, what do you mean by that?
