Chapter 22: Wi-Fi s Future

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Overview

Wi-Fi and its 802.11 series of specifications are traveling a similar evolutionary path to their wired equivalent, Ethernet and the 802.3 standards. Over the next two or three years we will see increases in transmitted bit-rates, and additional functionality in the areas of QoS, security, and power control. But the question that begs to be asked is, "Can Wi-Fi, like its wired counterpart, achieve the goal of the 'ever present' wireless network?" The answer is, "maybe." It certainly seems that the industry is moving in the right direction.

At this very moment battles are raging between IT departments, with their concern about security, and employees who demand networking freedom. Slowly, mobility is winning. "Once people have wireless inside their offices," says Frank Keeney, co-founder of the Southern California Wireless Users Group, "they never want to go back. It's a tremendous productivity tool." That goes double for road warriors, the real source of potential wealth in the wider Wi-Fi world. These corporate nomads, who number 11 million or more in the U.S. alone, encompass field sales representatives, insurance adjusters, real estate agents, delivery managers, and more.

Even the most technophobic CEO can imagine the benefit of a salesperson tapping into a database minutes before he or she sits down with a client; or a field service technician dialing up and instantly accessing a copy of a technical manual.

A wide variety of new devices are now available, such as Voice-over-Wi-Fi phones, Wi-Fi-enabled printers, projectors that offer the convenience of wireless connectivity, laptops with Wi-Fi capability built-in, and much more. Products such as these continually add to the usefulness of wireless networking. This trend enlarges people's notions of what is possible and helps to create a well-founded desire for the increased mobility that wireless networks can bring to their lives.

Wi-Fi also is spreading within academia as more and more schools make technology investment a top priority. Even when a school can't put a PC in every classroom, school administrators have discovered that Wi-Fi enables them to use computer carts. These allow teachers to schedule a period during the day or week when their students can have access to the computers, the Internet, and all that that entails. Thus even in these cash-strapped times, the maximum possible number of students can benefit from a school's technology investment. Wi-Fi enables the computer and cart to roam seamlessly from access point to access point throughout the school, to portable classrooms and even the assembly room, eliminating the time normally spent shutting the devices down between sessions.

Educational institutions can even lease laptops to students, so they can take them from classroom to classroom and then home at night. In these institutions, students can connect to the Internet, school printers, and other network resources during the school day, since access points are positioned throughout the school campus, eliminating the need for each student to connect to an Ethernet port.

Another Wi-Fi trend emerging today is voice/data convergence. Traditionally, voice and data networks have been separate, because no single technology meets the reliability and performance requirements of both. That, too, is rapidly changing. The focus of most converged network strategies is Voice over IP (VoIP), a technology that can transmit telephone conversations over any packet-switched IP network, whether it's a wired local area network, a Wi-Fi network, or the Internet. Standards, such as H.323 and the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), provide the necessary functionality. Of course, Quality of Service is another key requirement for successful VoIP communications, but with wireless connectivity now a reality, the stage is set for seamless, end-to-end voice/data solutions.



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Going Wi-Fi. A Practical Guide to Planning and Building an 802.11 Network
Going Wi-Fi: A Practical Guide to Planning and Building an 802.11 Network
ISBN: 1578203015
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 273

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