* Embedded NICs, switches drive Wi-Fi, says In-Stat/MDR
The wireless network industry seems to be striving to make wireless LAN connectivity as commonly available as dial-up Internet access.
In a recently released report, research firm In-Stat/MDR predicts that 16 million notebook PCs will ship this year with embedded 802.11 (“Wi-Fi”) connectivity, and that by 2005, 95% of notebooks will embed Wi-Fi network connections as a standard feature. At that juncture, the firm says, the extra cost of the Wi-Fi client will be virtually transparent to the buyer.
In its report, “The Wi-Fi Field of Dreams: If You Embed Wi-Fi, Infrastructure Will Come,” In-Stat/MDR also points out that the availability of dual-mode 802.11a/g chipsets and Intel’s plan to deliver a dual-mode mini-PCI form factor for notebooks as part of its Centrino initiative late this year are “squashing 802.11a-only equipment.”
The firm also asserts that in addition to the increased bundling of wireless network interface cards into business-class laptops, the emergence of wireless switching infrastructures is the second major trend pushing businesses toward wireless local networking.
Personally, I don’t think the “wireless switch” argument is over quite yet, other than I agree that the emergence of the design, configuration, management and monitoring tools often associated with this emerging architecture are absolutely necessary to support very-large-scale Wi-Fi installations. And if these new architectures drive the availability of those tools, then I concur with In-Stat/MDR that they can claim the credit for the uptake in business Wi-Fi.
How those tools are deployed within enterprises, though, is still a matter of great debate. Whether an 802.11 access point is dumb, smart or something in between doesn’t absolutely affect its ability to be centrally managed.
And depending on the geographic distribution of a given organization and where IT staff are available, organizations may eventually want to use one type of architecture or the other – or a combination of both. Similarly, they might elect to use third-party overlay tools, delivered by the likes of AirMagnet, AirWave, Wavelink and others.
There are still many product, component and partnership announcements to come before the industry settles on a set of clear choices in this area.
