Cutting the Network Cord

The Burton Group issued a report entitled "802.11n: The End of Ethernet?"which asserts that 802.11n is the first local area wireless technology thatcan replace wired Ethernet connections. The detailed report makes an honestassessment of the limitations of Wi-Fi, and discusses performance(throughput, latency, and jitter), security (eavesdropping, DoS, networkintrusion), management (moves/adds/changes, typical tasks, tools), and stafftraining and experience, and costs.
With throughput speeds of greater that 100 Mbps with today'simplementations, and claims of 150 Mbps in 2008, 802.11n promisesapproximately equivalent speeds to Fast Ethernet. Author Paul DeBeasi usesreal test results from WLAN testing vendor VeriWave to compare 802.11n toGigabit Ethernet, the competing wired local area network standard. An 8 MBfile which may have taken 20 seconds to transfer with 802.11g can beaccessed in 4 seconds with 802.11n, consistent with the 4 to 6x throughputclaims of enterprise Wi-Fi vendors. Latency and jitter results, whilehigher than gigabit Ethernet, of course, are still within acceptable valuesfor all but the most demanding environments such as engineering CAD/CAM,graphic design, and video production.

Wi-Fi security remains a red flag for many IT departments, even though ithas largely been addressed by IEEE and Wi-Fi Alliance standards. ButDeBeasi doesn't stick his head in the sand and ignore the stark realities of802.11 wireless: it's an unguided medium in a unlicensed frequency rangesusceptible at a minimum to deliberate interference, and has layer-2management and control frame concerns addressed only in part by the work ofIEEE's TGw. That said, there are wireless IDS/IPS products that can helpdetect most and mitigate many of those security concerns.

802.11n
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Management comparisons between wireless and wired Ethernet also result in amixed evaluation. On the one hand wireless networks eliminate adding ormoving cable runs and facilitate anytime, anywhere connectivity, but theselaptops require client utilities to control the wireless card and manageconnection profiles plus possibly an additional authentication component.Then there are the hard and soft costs: equipment purchase, staff training,and confidence building.
The report's title is surprisingly bold in comparison to this report, butperhaps it will cause enterprises to take notes. If you aren't goingall-wireless, build the coverage and most of the capacity in such a way thatsomeday you could support your user population. Even if that doesn't happennext year, you'll be providing your users good service now. There stillremain two tethered items: desk phones and desktop PCs. Only a few peoplelist their mobile phone as their primary phone, and fewer still their onlyone. Until enterprise FMC (fixed mobile convergence) becomes the norm orusers grow comfortable with soft phones, the desk phone will remain wired.And if that's wired, it's little more work to pull another CAT5e. Thoughmany organizations have outfitted their executive staff and travelingworkforce with laptops, almost every organization has those 9-to-5 employeesthat always work in the office and have been outfitted with a desktop PCwith fixed monitor. Unless these are clustered together and remain wired,an organization that truly wants to cut the cord will need to make aintentional effort to convert these staid users to laptops, too, or attachUSB wireless adapters.