Taking the Lead

The ease at which it can be installed and adopted by staff means its implementation is unlikely to ever result in crossed wires.

In fact, its appeal is contagious, with annual worldwide WLAN equipment sales forecast to reach US$3.6 billion by 2009. Quick to realize and utilize its potential has been the United States, which has so far accounted for 48 percent of WLAN equipment revenue in 2006.

As Vice President for Mobility Infrastructure at Dell’Oro Group, Greg Collins knows more than most about the growth of wireless LAN. “In 2005, the market for enterprise wireless LAN was around US$1 billion for the full year. We think market growth will be even stronger in 2006 with the market expected to grow 50 percent to about US$1.4 billion,” he predicts.

“There are many drivers contributing to this growth including productivity driven application and end-user demand. Vertical markets like healthcare, retail, warehousing and education (especially in places like universities) have a big need for wireless LAN because users of the network are moving around or are transitive. These therefore have traditionally been strong markets for wireless LAN. Increasingly, carpeted enterprise areas are deploying wireless LANs.”

A major turning point in the technology’s appeal was when it started to be integrated into notebook computers. Following this development, other markets aside from specific verticals started to sit up and take notice. But there are other reasons for the popularity of WLAN. For a start, there is no need to plug in equipment, allowing users the freedom and convenience to keep in contact anywhere in the organization provided the mobile terminal is under the network coverage area. Wireless LANs are easy-to-use, therefore introducing the system to an organization is a relatively painless process – particularly as applications work in the same way as they do for wired LANs. And although initially expensive, the cost of WLANs has considerably decreased overtime and is now an affordable option often working out cheaper to maintain and install than a wired network.

“Guest access is another big application and another reason why enterprises use wireless LANs,” highlights Collins. “Many enterprises have contractors, lawyers, auditors and other people from outside that come into their premises to work. Wireless LANs are a really efficient way of providing access to those types of workers. People use notebook computers whilst on the road and at home, so it is natural when they get to the office that they want to use the same functionality. There are therefore a lot of demand drivers pushing wireless LANs more and more into enterprises.”

There are a number of applications further fueling the growth of WLAN – one of which is voice-over-wireless LAN – which Collins believes will have a huge impact in the future.

“The application that many people are pointing to is the integration of voice into enterprise wireless LAN as a way to always stay connected and be available through the IT infrastructure, “ he says. “Although people wander round the office with their mobile phones they don’t have access to the corporate directory. Mobile cell phones can be expensive, so by integrating the IP telephony functionality through the wireless LAN it will enable enterprises to save money through cell phone or blackberry bills as well as keep people connected more often and make it easier for people to communicate and improve.”

Strong growth in VoWLAN has been forecast with sales expected to reach US$1.1 billion by 2010 according to InfoTech’s Mobile Communications in the US survey. Demand for the technology appears to be potentially huge with 30 percent of the 1800 corporate decision-makers surveyed revealing they have already implemented VoWLAN somewhere in their organizations, with that number expected to rise to 77 percent by the end of 2008. Despite this kind of interest, cost (at least for the time being) is still a concern for widespread adoption.

“Voice-over-wireless LAN, right now, only appeals to specific verticals because the cost is very high,” says Collins. “You have to provide the handset, but if you can remove the cost of the handset or the client then it becomes much more appealing and becomes an issue that IT managers would probably have to address in some manner.”

Another important development that has taken place is the transition from fat access points to thin access points plus a centralized switch. The move to thin APs that make use of a wireless switch not only enhances operation but can often prove cheaper thus saving costs. Furthermore, these skinny access points (plus a switch) are often easier to manage and secure particularly when referring to a big network.

The more access points there are then the more expensive the network – although, as Collins highlights, the cost per AP if you have a big system can trend down over time, depending on how the network is constructed and how the business makes use of some of the centralized management through a wireless LAN switch architecture. One example of an effective system with many access points is Microsoft choosing Aruba networks for their enterprise wireless LAN.

“This is a case where the security feature of the product has an integrated firewall directly into the switch,” says Collins. “This architecture is appealing to very big, leading-edge and security-conscious companies. I’m sure there are many other examples where centralizing a lot of the intelligence and management enables the network to scale so that you don’t need to manually update security and management information to every access point. You don’t want important network data contained in an access point memory that is stuck in a ceiling somewhere in a remote office.”

Whilst security is certainly an issue to take into consideration, many find the issue of network management equally as intimidating. Already juggling the roll-out of Ethernet, the addition of WLAN can be a daunting prospect. Fortunately, network vendors are realizing that this presents a barrier.

“The easier networks are to manage, the better,” argues Collins. “Network vendors are certainly getting better all the time at doing this. We are seeing wireless functionality getting imbedded into the LAN switch architecture, which is beginning to happen and should continue. Wireless will just be another access type technology along with Ethernet. The network at some point becomes agnostic to how it’s accessed because there are so many access technologies.”

“Right now if an enterprise wants to have a one-stop-shop for enterprise equipment there is really only one vendor that provides everything and that’s Cisco,” he continues. “But many of the wired-line providers are integrating wireless even more. These include Nortel, Extreme, Foundry, HP ProCurve and 3Com.”

One thing Collins is keen to stress is the importance of network management. “The better management may come with additional capital costs, but it will save in operating costs because if you have a couple of thousand, or even hundred, access points you don’t want to crawl into the ceiling every time there is a problem with one. Instead you want a sophisticated management tool that updates all the user profiles centrally, can troubleshoot different problems in the network without having to dig around the ceiling every time there is an issue. Therefore having the better management will save on operational costs and facilitate bigger networks.”

All organizations are keen to boost their productivity therefore improving and upgrading their communications network is a sure-set way of achieving this. WLAN and its associated applications are not only affordable, easy to install and convenient but provide flexibility and efficiency – it’s therefore little surprise that so many companies are making the switch.