The new 802.11ac standard provides bandwidth equal to or surpassing that which is available to most wired users, but abandoning wired networks isn't for everyone just yet.
In both consumer and enterprise networks, wireless is king. According to Nemertes' benchmark research, spending on mobile devices and services will take up about 8% of overall IT budgets in 2015 -- a number that we expect to rapidly climb. More than half of companies are increasing spend on mobile devices, with a mean increase of around 25% a year. The shift to mobile goes beyond phones and tablets: On average about 29% of the typical user population will rely on Wi-Fi as their primary means of corporate connectivity -- a number that has almost doubled in the last 24 months.
Wireless standards continue to rapidly evolve to keep up with this growing demand for Wi-Fi access. The latest iteration of the venerable IEEE standard, 802.11ac Wave 1, offers upwards of 1.6 Gigabits of bandwidth, with Wave 2 upping potential per-user bandwidth north of 6 Gigs later this year. With support for QoS, and spectrum management enhancements that increase WLAN reach and density, the time may finally be right for companies to abandon wired networks all-together, but there's a catch; actually, three primary catches that IT leaders should consider before cutting the cord.
The Uplink: Let's step back for a minute and think about how most wireless networks are designed today. Access points are distributed around offices and other facilities, connecting back over Cat 5e or 6 cabling to an Ethernet switch located in a closet via 1 GigE switch port. Typically, that Ethernet switch powers the AP.
Obviously upping per-user access bandwidth to anywhere from 1 Gbps to 6 Gbps means that the 1 Gbps uplink is likely to quickly become saturated. While it's unlikely that end-user devices will use the full available bandwidth, even a dozen or two devices demanding 200-300 Mbps will strain the 1 Gbps uplink. So the answer is simple -- just upgrade the 1 GigE uplink to 10 GigE, right? Not so fast.
Read the rest of the article and Irwin's gotchas on NoJitter.
Comments
pv@frontwave.eu
User Rank: Apprentice
Wed, 05/06/2015 - 06:44
Apart of the reasons detailed in the article there are some places where WiFi is limited or not permitted at all. Certain financial institutions do not allow any wireless connectivity on their offices to avoid the possibility of hacking and/or people downloading critical information.
Some hospitals do not allow WiFi in critical care areas but ethernet is necessary for the monitoring devices.
In some European countries WiFi is not permitted on day care facilities and elementary schools.
We also need ethernet to troubleshoot network issues, especially if WiFi is down.
I believe ethernet will be with us for a while, or will be subtituted by another wired solution. Leaving everything to WiFi is limiting possibilities and creating additional IT potential problems.
marciasavage
User Rank: Guru
Wed, 05/06/2015 - 07:25
I agree with you Pablo, I don't see WiFi replacing wired Ethernet anytime soon. As you mention, there are organizations that restrict WiFi use for security or regulatory issues. I think stability issues would be a top factor for many companies.
Network Computing
User Rank: Apprentice
Wed, 05/06/2015 - 10:42
My wife was in hospital a few months ago and although there was wi-fi available it was restricted to a basic level. My own website was banned becuase the system believed it was a gaming website. So while a wireless connection is a good idea, when its restricted like this it is almost useless and very annoying too.
marciasavage
User Rank: Guru
Wed, 05/06/2015 - 12:05
David, I'm sorry your wife was in the hospital. I hope she's OK now. It sounds like you encountered some pretty strict security restrictions on that hospital WiFi.
Network Computing
User Rank: Apprentice
Thu, 05/07/2015 - 01:09
I can understand that public Wi-Fi needs to be restricted to a certain extent, but it seems that in this case they are pushing the envelope too much in order to ensure that some users are not taking up all of the bandwidth. The trouble in this case was also location, it is rural and so the mobile signal is weak too making it almost impossible to download emails etc.
Network Computing
User Rank: Apprentice
Mon, 05/11/2015 - 00:08
You have raised a great point. At the one hand, the rural environment and weak mobile signals drops 4G data to 2G and at the other hand, the alternative network is restricted. It is a cascading and interrelated situation.
It would be nice if compression technology for network traffic was further researched now because, mobile devices have become powerful enough to handle games, and so a little compression will not hurt.
Network Computing
User Rank: Apprentice
Sun, 05/10/2015 - 23:59
I completely agree with you, from the network perspective, Ethernet is not going to go away anytime soon, it is the backbone of the network. And, from the consumer's perspective, Ethernet is already dead.
As for the power infrastructure requirement, it is always easier for the network professional to deliver clean and stable power to a device via PoE then, coordinating with the facilities department to enable an electrical socket in the right place for a power adopter. This makes the deployment of a complete wireless network in the enterprise problematic.