What is Wireless Networking?

In the simplest terms, a traditional, “wired” computer network (or Local Area Network, LAN) can be seen as a number of boxes joined together by wires. Often the positions of those boxes are dictated by the constraints imposed by the wires.

The article here provides an overview of wireless networks in general and wireless Ethernet in particular. When most people talk about wireless networks in the corporate environment, they usually mean wireless Ethernet. This does what it says on the tin – it takes the ubiquitous LAN protocol Ethernet, and extends it to wire-free environments. Wireless Ethernet supports data speeds of 2 megabits per second (Mbps) and 11 Mbps – to put this into perspective, traditional Ethernet could handle 10Mbps and many networks being deployed today support 100Mbps.

The second high-profile wireless protocol is Bluetooth, designed to replace the wires between devices and peripherals (say, a computer and a printer, or a laptop and a mobile phone). Planet IT provides an explanation of Bluetooth here – however it is a bit “techie”. Bluetooth I soften compared to the InfraRed standard IrDA, which it is probably going to replace – here is one comparison in a larger report.

Click Wireless Ethernet: Neither Bitten Nor Blue for a comparison of Bluetooth and Wireless Ethernet.

Unless you have very specific requirements, these two protocols should cater for your needs hence we shall concentrate on them here.

The Business Benefits of Wireless Networks

The key benefit of wireless networking is flexibility: in the box-wire scenario above, if you take away the wires, you can be more flexible about how you locate the boxes. Hence:

Hot-desking environments (in which desk space is allocated on a first-come-first-served basis) can be built, configured and modified cheaply and simply. The Wireless LAN association site provides a Return On Investment study here.
Office facilities can be allocated and moved as user needs dictate, for example to cater for department reorganisations. For information on how wireless technologies enable flexible office working, visit the Flexibility website here.
Users can access applications from wherever they are on the site, and even on the move – opening up possibilities environments such as warehouses. Intel has a list of benefits of mobile computing here.

It is difficult to find a report that concentrates on Bluetooth from a corporate perspective. This may be for a couple of reasons – the first is that no one is really sure of what the tangible benefits will be so it is the intangibles that are focused on. The second is that the business benefits are irrelevant to the manufacturers, which are equipping devices with Bluetooth whether the end-users want it or not. Time will tell. <find report?>

Deploying Wireless Networks in the Corporate Environment

In most circumstances, wireless extensions will be added to an existing, wired LAN. If you want to get straight on and understand how to build a wireless network based on wireless Ethernet, there’s some useful explanations and diagrams here.

Intel has a well-put-together site on wireless networking. In particular there is a series of articles on how to migrate towards wireless technologies. These are good articles but remember Intel’s clearly stated objective – to get people to buy laptop computers – so read with this in mind.

Issues with Wireless Networks

The main issues with current wireless networking technologies are as follows:

Wireless Ethernet, which is touted to deliver either 2Mbps or 11Mbps over a 30-metre indoor range, in reality delivers less than the maximum depending on the number of simultaneous users, the distance from the transmitter and any obstacles that may be in the way. A good summary (though virtually unreadable – white on black!) of wireless networking issues in general, and obstacle types in particular, may be found here.

Wireless Ethernet devices have interoperability problems, that is devices from different manufacturers are not working properly together – hence the need for the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance.
One of the prime protocols –Bluetooth – interferes with wireless Ethernet and with itself – click here for a brief corroboration of this.
There are also question marks over the security of wireless networks, with both eavesdropping and hacking being major concerns. For a view on wireless network security, see the following ComputerWorld article.

The Future of Wireless Networking

HiperLAN 2 is a standard defined for “next generation” wireless LAN environments, and is capable of supporting theoretical data speeds of 54Mbps. Much industry support is rallying behind HiperLAN 2, a good article for which can be found here.

Note that HiperLAN 2 also promises interoperability with the 3G protocol UMTS, which we discuss in out Mobile Internet section. It may be that, in the future, this differentiation disappears as the technologies converge with each other (and, potentially, with “wired” technologies). For the moment they remain poles apart.

As for Bluetooth, as chipsets for this protocol are currently being incorporated into many devices, it looks set to carve itself a niche in the future. Bluetooth 2 is currently being specified, as you can see here.

Further Resources on Wireless Networking

Industry Forums and Associations

Bluetooth consortium – you might think this would be a good place to get information about Bluetooth, but you’d be wrong. Here you have a choice – eye-candy marketing or detailed, heavy technical specifications.

Wireless LAN association – hosts some useful information.

Developer Sites

Wireless Developer Network – a comprehensive site for the more technical.