ITBusinessEdge: Could Switching To Wi-Fi Networking Save You Money?
While he has been a strong proponent of Wi-Fi networking for small businesses in the past, Paul Mah now says there are some problems with Wi-Fi that can offset the undoubted benefits for some small business users.
“I came across a recent blog by ‘Frugal Geek’ Matt Ryan who wrote about the benefits of Wi-Fi and how it can help to dramatically cut costs for small businesses. While I admit that I had once called for the adoption of wireless networking to reduce infrastructure costs, my thinking on this front has mellowed somewhat over the last two years. The truth is that many of the cost advantages envisioned by tech-savvy users are probably not applicable for anything beyond very small office setups that are between 10 to 20 nodes. Beyond that, the deployment cost of rolling out Wi-Fi can go up substantially. There are a number of reasons why this happens and I’ve listed a couple of them below.
Network Saturation
Wireless networks with more than 20 nodes running off a single access point (AP) bear a higher risk of getting saturated by network data. What many IT professionals aren’t aware of is a Wi-Fi AP operates in half-duplex over what is essentially a single collision domain, which makes any assertion on “similar performance” against a switched, full-duplex Ethernet network a poor one. As you can imagine, activities such as video or music streaming, as well as VoIP applications will strain a wireless network far more than a wired connection. Obviously, a publishing house or architecture design firm will see network saturation points reached much earlier given the large files that get shuttled across its network. And yes, Windows workstations tend to be broadcast-happy, which can bog down an improperly designed wireless network.”
