Choosing between wireless and wired internet connection

manveetarora · ‎05-08-2013

How to choose between wi fi and leased line internet connectivity for an enterprise network. Which solution is better? Making the whole campus wi fi or having wired internet connections?

Keny Perez · ‎05-08-2013

Manveet,

This will depend on your site design, are you looking for your end users to have mobility within the company?

-Kenny

Leo Laohoo · ‎05-08-2013

A common misconception is that wireless will take over wired.

Not today.

Currently, Wireless LAN (WLAN) is to assist the wired network. Not alot of printers, a big stumbling block, will support WPA2.

The next question is what country you are in. This is because some countries do NOT allow 802.11a/n. If you are in an area where your neighbors have existing 802.11b/g network, then don't expect good wireless coverage because the risk of channel interferrence from your neighbor's wireless and your own environment in the form of bluetooth, microwave, wireless PA systems, DECT phones. The lot.

manveetarora · ‎05-08-2013

The country is India and we are desiring to have around 400 user connections. Is there a difference between the speeds offered by wireless and wired connections??

Leo Laohoo · ‎05-09-2013

Is there a difference between the speeds offered by wireless and wired connections??

This is a "loaded" question. This question cannot be easily answered in a "yes" or "no".

Let's start with the basic ...

Wired Ethernet, for desktop/laptop, comes in three flavour, aka triple speed, 10-, 100-, 1000 Mbps. Whether or not your wired ethernet client can process full speed 1000BaseTx is a different topic which I will NOT be discussing.

Next, wireless LAN ... Wireless LAN has, FOUR different protocol which dictates what variable speed you can push. They are 802.11 b, a, g, n. A fifth protocol has just started to emerge and it's called 802.11 ac (wave 1).

Before you can rub your hands together and say "Oh goodie! I'll go wireless" be aware of a major hurdle in wireless: Wireless data transmission acts like a HUB. And like a wired ethernet hub, when one client talks, everyone else stops and waits for their turn.

So let's say that you have a conference room. You have about 30 people and you enabled a single 802.11 b/g. Next the participants starts downloading, say YouTube. Do you think they'll get full speed? Maybe. But not always.

Next issue is channel interferrence.

Let's presume that you are in the middle of a building complex. You have neighbors with their own WLAN modems/routers around them. Let's say you too have one and because of the price you purchased one that will only support 802.11 b/g.

So you turn it on. The laptop will say, hey! Full bar. Full speed. Right? Nope. Not all the time.

If your neighbors are blasting, at full power, their 802.11 b/g then there's a significant chance that you will get issues in channel interference because 802.11 b/g can only operate in three non-overlapping channels. This is why in dense deployment, 802.11 a/n trumps because 802.11 a/n can operate in more channels and significantly minimizing channel interferrance.

Another factor: Client. Let's say that you have enable 802.11 a/n in your network. Let's say you've got iPhones 4/4S and iPad 3/4. According to Apple, the products I've just mentioned support 802.11n, therefore you can get the smartphone/tablet to push 802.11n, right? NOPE. No way. It is very well known that smartphones and tablets cannot push 802.11n because these products don't have the CPU power nor the battery life to push that fast.

So before you start going out and making a recommendation that WLAN CAN replace wired LAN, you need to get your facts straight and do further research.