* Readers weigh in on wired vs. wireless LANs
Last month I raised the issue of the future of desktop cabling. I got a tremendous response from many readers – for which I’m very grateful – and I’d like to share the varied and valuable opinions with you over the next few newsletters.
In the original newsletter I noted that there seem to be three worlds colliding – copper wiring, fiber-optic lines and wireless LANs. Copper is by far the most successful, particularly when we’re talking about enterprise desktop connections. But WLANs are an up-and-comer based on their ease of installation, and fiber optics could suddenly gain popularity as IT managers start to seriously consider speeds beyond Gigabit Ethernet.
In coming newsletters I’ll relay some comments on the question of fiber optics vs. copper. Even though it’s an age-old debate, a lot of readers had a fresh perspective on the state of that debate today.
But first, let’s look at wireless. Several readers pointed out that WLANs have a prominent limitation: they’re a shared medium. They’re not like wire-based LAN switches, where every desktop can get its own 100M bit/sec or even Gigabit Ethernet pipe. Instead, every wireless device shares the 54M bit/sec (or whatever the number may be) of bandwidth available. Then there’s the issue of interference from other sources.
That may not be too bad, but as one reader put it, “Setting up a test group of representative users may be the only way to tell whether your own users using your own mix of applications will get acceptable throughput using wireless or how many folks should be connecting through an access point.”
The feeling seems to be that even though standards bodies may increase the speeds available for WLANs, the limitation of working in a shared medium will kill any chance for widespread deployment as an alternative to running dedicated cables.
Still, while not many readers said so, I think it’s obvious that WLANs will of course fill niche needs, and will do so nicely.
More in our next issue.
