Wireless Lab

[b.calsing]

At my school we are looking at relocating a computer lab (approximately 30 desktops) to a new room. Would it be wise (based on throughput) to make the new lab wireless or to have the room cabled? We are running both ipx and ip protocols on a novell network typical applications are internet, file access, and maybe a small network app here or there. My thinking is the speed and throughput would be noticably slower than if we cable the room for ethernet, but I am by no means a wireless expert.

[cminch]

Hi,

If your ethernet is running 10MBs then you should not notice that much of a difference. Granted you wont have the throughput like on cable but it is cheaper. Not to mention if it is only 10MB, you have the alternative to use the 54MBs flavor. This would be more proficient and still cost less than the the cable version. If you ethernet is 100MB, then you won't meet those speeds with standardized wireless for a while.

Regards,

Corey

[matt.austin]

I think it depends on what your trying to achieve. There are pro's and con's associated with both. Are you looking at being at the location for a long time? How important is security to you?

Wireless Pro's

-No need for holes to be drilled for cable runs

-Fast installation - no cabling required

-PC's can be moved around the premises as required, without the need to arrange new cable runs

-New 54Mbps wireless is more than 5x faster then 10Mbps wired ethernet networks

Some Con's:

The 2.4GHz frequency is particularly congested, with 802.11b and 802.11g networks sharing the same radio resources as Bluetooth, microwave ovens, cordless phone systems, baby monitors and wireless video senders.(http://www.vnunet.com/Features/1143203)

Also depending on whether u need strong security, Wireless is inherently insecure.

Some pretty good links for reference:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1153316,00.asp

http://www.vicomsoft.com/knowledge/reference/wireless1.html#12