Consumers have been quicker to adopt wireless Lans than
enterprises, but issues holding back enterprise adoption have been
solved, clearing the way for businesses to hop on the Wlan train, a
Cisco Systems executive said yesterday.
Enterprises are slow to adopt wireless networks because of
perceived security holes, deployment complexity, management
concerns and perceived low return on investment, said Steve Nye,
general manager of Cisco's Building Broadband Solutions unit. All
those are issues of the past, Nye said in a speech at the Wi-Fi
Planet Conference & Expo in San Jose, California.
The first generation of Wlan security was flawed, but those
problems have been solved with Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) and
work being done by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers 802.11i working group which will "put to bed the
perception that security is an issue", Nye said, adding
that 802.11i promises stronger encryption, better key management
and authentication.
Deployment and management issues can be solved with a common
management scheme, integrating the Wlan, popularly known as Wi-Fi,
into the wired Lan, Nye said. Products are available to allow
central control of the network and to enforce company policies.
There is also proof that wireless networks provide business
benefits, Nye said, citing a study which showed that workers in
businesses with a Wlan were connected to their company network 1.75
hours more per day in 2001, a figure that went up to 3.5 hours more
daily online time in 2003.
"If we can provide the tools to our employees, they can now work
when they want, where they want," he added.
Adoption of Wi-Fi meanwhile is being driven by the availability
of more devices with built-in support for wireless networking, such
as notebook computers and handhelds. Still, wireless networks are
unlikely to be pervasive until the issue of roaming is solved and
users can sign on easily wherever they are, Nye said.
"Somebody has to be able to open their laptop and log on
wherever they are. When this occurs, seamless roaming, that is when
this will really take off and when behavioural change will occur,
and when we will really have changed this paradigm from working in
one place to working anywhere we want," he added.
Joris Evers writes for IDG News Service
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