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Wireless Networks Causing Headaches For Businesses
ElvaWSJ writes "Wi-Fi was supposed to reduce complications, not create new ones. But in many offices Wi-Fi has been a headache. Like all radio signals, Wi-Fi is subject to interference. Its low power — less than even a typical cellphone — means that walls and cabinets can significantly reduce signal strength. Wi-Fi also creates networks that are more open than wired ones, raising security issues. And Wi-Fi has caused problems for virtual private networks. Some VPNs require a lot of processing power. If a wireless access point — at home, at the office, or on the road — isn't robust enough, a user often gets bumped off the connection."
Duh?
Make sure there are some bloody data ports where they are useful. The gods know how many office conference rooms I have walked into where there are two power/data/phone outlets on the far ends of the room behind heavy credenzas, instead of in the middle of the room accessible from the table top. Otherwise just blanket the place with WiFi and suck it up.
Not really, if you are a business that is deploying wifi as a solution to allow laptop users to move around fine, however if it is cheap solution to installing hard wired cables to each desk then someone needs to be re-informed about the pitfalls.
Alot of problems are caused by poorly written drivers, if I haven't done so before the first thing I do when someone presents with poor wireless connectivity is update their drivers and ditch the 3rd party software connection software.
Wifi should be a supplement for larger areas with changing configurations (meeting rooms, conference rooms, etc) not as a replacement for a typical wired setup. Unless you plan on constantly rearranging your cubes, there's no reason to do that. Also you should think of the two networks as being completely separate and treat the wireless network as a public access point (i.e. force VPN access to the wired portion of your network).
I see the problem coming in where people think it's a wired replacement.
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"And may your days be long upon the earth."
Supplement the interference-prone air based connection with a direct conductive wire. Transmit signals over wire. Bingo!
It strikes me this may even be used to get around such obstacles like e.g. metal walls.
Good thing it doesn't have to work over as great a distance as a cell phone then. It's almost as it it was designed that way!
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
9dB antennas are cheap and work great.
lets see poor transmitter power output, integrated 1/8th wave PCB antennas, microwave frequencies, $3 of electronics
gee i wonder why its crap ?
...that it takes more wire to set up a good wireless network than it does to set up a wired network. The number of APs required to get good, even coverage is far larger than anyone thinks, and the overall complexity tends to really tax all by the best installers.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
News at 11.
:)
I used to do wireless mesh network algorythm development and we had (with 802.11b) acceptable, AES encrypted, coverage of a motor factory (think *lots* of wire and EM) with nodes running on 200mhz arm systems and 64mb of ram. No problems with VOIP either. You just need to do some (ok, expensive) system design and there's no reason why it wont work. In the demo system the nodes updated their routing tables using a ropey bash script even
Expecting that off the shelf gear can magically set itself up is the problem, not the protocol itself (which can be worked around in many interesting ways).
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
In other news, a new study shows Water is usually wet! Details at 10...
Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?
The future seems bleak for a service like WiFi. Seeing as it is a fairly new breakthrough, large corporations have not yet capitalized on it, the WiFi Alliance is the only major controlling body of the communication, and that is a nonprofit organization. Much as Microsoft capitalized on the computer industry, making mainstream, insecure computers, I expect a number of corporations to begin buying WiFi rights and making the system even less secure.
At some point companies may wrap the exterior of the building with Faraday mesh to prevent radio signals from exiting the building with any significant range. External radio signals could be ported and broadcast within the building similar to the project to extend radio station signals into road tunnels as test in Pittsburgh, Pa. This would allow the company to control the signals that enter and exit the building while also allowing for cellphones and radios to work.
Now the cost to benefit ratio of such a system would most likely kills the idea unless the security of the network was highly valued.
Where's the sense in trying to make the whole office wireless?
Yes for home usage (routing proper wires can be too much a pain in the ass, if not impossible.) Yes for lobbies and other uncluttered public open spaces (it's a really nice complimentary service for laptop users.) But no for the main office. Those channels in cube walls and removable carpet tiles were made for a reason folks. In the office workspace it just makes more sense to stick with the ethernet, not to mention it significantly reduces the potential for unauthorized access to the network in addition to other problems.
"Things got so bad that Mr. Friemann sometimes had employees piggyback on a neighboring business's wireless connection that was more stable -- without the other business's consent or knowledge." -- Ok so your neighbor could set up a network which worked fine even for you whom, presumably, are further away from his source than you are from your own. Despite this its somehow the technologies fault? WiFi is fine, established, and mature this admins understanding of it is not. and then there is this -- "Some wireless networking companies are taking steps to try to deal with customers' problems. One major issue is the stability of the wireless signal. Ruckus Wireless Inc., a wireless networking company based in Sunnyvale, Calif., tries to address that problem by providing wireless access points that have multiple antennas. That allows a Wi-Fi signal to have more than one pathway to an access point -- which can come in handy if something is in the way." -- Its called a cable folks, there are plenty of ways to rig antennas and get them in existing wap points. Thats not to say there is no value in what Ruckus is doing just that its not like we cant do that.
you still took the time to read and comment on it, now didn't you?
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
"Things got so bad that Mr. Friemann sometimes had employees piggyback on a neighboring business's wireless connection that was more stable -- without the other business's consent or knowledge."
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Ok so your neighbor could set up a network which worked fine even for you whom, presumably, are further away from his source than you are from your own. Despite this its somehow the technologies fault? WiFi is fine, established, and mature this admins understanding of it is not.
and then there is this
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"Some wireless networking companies are taking steps to try to deal with customers' problems. One major issue is the stability of the wireless signal. Ruckus Wireless Inc., a wireless networking company based in Sunnyvale, Calif., tries to address that problem by providing wireless access points that have multiple antennas. That allows a Wi-Fi signal to have more than one pathway to an access point -- which can come in handy if something is in the way."
--
Its called a cable folks, there are plenty of ways to rig antennas and get them in existing wap points. Thats not to say there is no value in what Ruckus is doing just that its not like we cant do that.
I can almost guarantee my boss read this, and he's been pushing for wireless for a while now. This is an excellent heads up, as far as I'm concerned.
My biggest problem with the wireless he wants isn't even the wireless...I can deal with that. It's the fact that he wants to do the wireless to make up for the deficiencies of the wired network. But of course, he's not paying for the fiber drops we're going to need, so we're going to have massive network bottlenecks. Oy vey. Everyone thinks they can get something for nothing.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
1 - No radio signal is safe from detection and decryption. There's no way I would trust my business secrets to wifi.
2 - There have been so many laptops stolen with highly sensitive files. There's no way I would let my employees connect their laptops to a network where they have access to such files.
So my solution is: A wired network for desktops. No floppies. No USB. The sensitive files stay within the building. Wifi is OK for people to browse the net and do e-mail. There. One wifi point in the lounge and another in the cafeteria. Problem solved.
This is the same as when some were claiming that wireless causes cancer. Now they're blaming every little headache they get on it. Yes, lets blame all our health problems on magic invisible waves.
Notice: I'm not stupid and I do realize it doesn't mean that kind of headache, just playing with your heads... mod be down you wankers
Meh.
Before rolling out a big business wireless network, the installers should do a check of existing interference, then setup a simple access point/client and check it out in different places using a spectrum analyzer. Just like cable techs sometimes need a cat-5 analyser to trouble wiring plant problems, the wireless tech needs an instrument to measure the rf environment.
Heck, my wireless pda loses signal while standing near the microwave popping pop corn. Some buildings, especially in industrial areas, can get lousy with interference
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
A tin-foil hat. The problem goes away.
(You want me to read the what?)
Johnson, get your ass back to work! And for the last time, I'm as regular as a Swiss clock, so keep your fiber drops to yourself!
WiFi should not be used in a business setting, period. Anything important should be limited to the wired network. If I was a SysAdmin at a company, I would make it an important policy to have all people using laptops keep WiFi turned off at all times when on campus. With regard to people working in the field: use a VPN over a wired connection, or else. Most hotels have wired Internet connectivity for guests. If a wired connection is unavailable, use dialup. End of story.
WiFi was built for convenience of home users, not for enterprise. It is a technology that does not belong in enterprise networking. Period.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
There's no good reason to use encryption in a corporate environment.
I mean, there's no reason to use client-to-accesspoint encryption. Instead you should be encrypting directly from the client to the VPN gateway.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Here's my anecdotal report--I've found that real-life Ethernet speeds are lower than theoretical maximums, but there's an even larger difference between real-life and theoretical maximum wireless network speeds. Wireless is fine if you are sharing an internet connection or small files, but if I need to transfer large files, I either use an external drive, or plug both machines into the twisted-pair.
I prefer wired networks for most business installations because I've encountered applications that, when faced with a momentary drop (a second or two) in the wireless connection (which will happen occasionally), hang up. I know a lot of people use wireless because it's easy to set up, but if you have a desktop machine that has a semi-permanent home, I think wired is more reliable and, in some applications, noticeably faster.
Suffice it to say that I've never made regular use of a VPN over the wireless part of a network.
Sent from my iPhone
I have issues at home with this. The roof of my house is made of aluminum (not that cheap corrugated stuff like on a barn, but interlocking strips). This wreaks absolute HAVOC on WiFi signals inside my house.
If I put an access point at one end of the house, I can't pick it up AT ALL from the other end. I'm not talking microscopic SNR, I'm talking ZERO SNR. It's like I don't even have an access point. I'm lucky to get a quarter of the rated bandwidth if I'm only one room away.
For a while I had a ridiculous setup consisting of an access point and two repeaters just to get the signal to the other end of the house. TWO REPEATERS. That's THREE HOPS to travel about 100 feet. And of course, the concommitant loss in data rate due to the repeater action. After a few weeks of that (and even that setup was flaky at best) I said "Fuck it" and dragged a CAT-5e cable across the house. The wife hates it but at least I can use the Internet.
I have no idea how exactly the metal roof is destroying the signal, whether it is causing severe multipath or simply absorbing it completely, but it does it quite effectively.
Headaches cause wireless networks!
This doesn't change for wired or wireless. But, with wireless there may be even more temptation to do it cheaply because everyone has it at home and thinks it's simple. Clearly it wasn't just a technological problem, because the IT guy said he sometimes told people to connect to their neighbor's WiFi. It seems that his WiFi was just unusually poorly implemented.
Step back, look at the network, assess where wired ports are needed and where wireless is the best/only option. Then buy some decent gear that is reliable and manageable (No, not $50 D-Link/Linksys stuff at OfficeMax).
It's not that hard. It just takes a plan, and some effort to do it right.
Just paint the outer interior walls of your building or corporation with a few layers of lead-based paint. Hopefully, you do not run a day-care.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
"Um.. Duh?" (Score: 5, Insightful)
it's better then the endless blog postings that now pass as news around here. 90% of them are upright trolls of fanboi rants.
...The net went down all the time. Not acceptable for pro use. Brother has wifi at home and it's the same story. It is a main reason that at home I'm still wired up- as a result, the network Just Works, all the time- parts of it run at 1 gigabit/sec. While wifi still seems to have some serious maturing to do, I'll wait a bit more and enjoy the benefits: always up, no concerns about neighbors piggybacking on the connection, and the wife is delighted that I don't take a laptop to bed.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
You're an idiot.
To explain WHY I called you and idiot, I work for a company that sells, among other things, home automation equipment. Much of this equipment uses zigbee, but the controllers, which you have to program, use WiFi.
If we paid attention to retards like you, I COULD NOT DO MY JOB (as in, IT'S NOT POSSIBLE) because many of these devices DO NOT HAVE 8P8C jacks. YOU CAN'T plug them in to a wired network.
And yet I have to program them. YOU are stupid enough to think that "WiFi should not be used in a business setting, period." and yet, if I listened to you, we'd be out of business.
Never share your opinion again, unless it's about the proper amount of teeth to use when giving a blowjob. You're clearly too fucking moronic to comment on anything else.
PERIOD.
Wi-Fi was supposed to reduce complications, not create new ones.
No. Wi-Fi was supposed to let you maintain a network connection without wires. For the most part it does that fairly well, just not as well as a wired connection.
If anyone is relying on wi-fi for an always-on, never breaks technology, they're fooling themselves. What wireless technology works like that? Cell phones have been around for at least 30 years and we all still know it's not as reliable as a land line.
AccountKiller
That's not the actual worst thing. I can handle all the "access from anywhere", that was what it's designed to do. The worst thing is when the access point sometimes decides to reset (I have a Linksys AP) and it reverts back to it's original, OPEN SETTINGS. I go to work one day and I notice that the AP changed its ssid back to "linksys", giving free access to everyone within the radius for the past week.
Seriously, wtf.
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
The gods know how many office conference rooms I have walked into where there are two power/data/phone outlets on the far ends of the room behind heavy credenzas, instead of in the middle of the room accessible from the table top.
:-)
Conference rooms are often populated by guests. I would not be surprised if your local security policy states that guests are not permitted to connect to the company network: having no easily-accessible jacks can be a decent physical security measure. Of course, this requires that guests not be left unattended, etc.
The placement of the credenza is either a calculated security move or a blunder of forehead-slapping magnitude, depending on your outlook.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Linux makes cigarettes? Who'da thunk it?
Doesn't moving to 802.11N and a Radius server mitigate these problems?
Horns are really just a broken halo.
Rules of WiFi:
Put in dedicated services for visitors with instructions conspicuously posted in conference areas (along with sufficient power supplies.) Inform staff if they are caught using these open systems their devices will be taken away, and if they relied upon such to do their jobs they will then be unsuitable for continued employment.
Finally, consider alternatives to WiFi. There are any number of products that will carry WiFi-equivalent bandwidth over residential wiring. If youre looking to connect fixed devices without running ethernet then these are a no-hassle approach with competitive costs.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
hooked into the phone system of the office, Why wasn't there a simple ethernet jack along with it?
What's your point? That it must have been useful because I read it? No. It wasn't. The issue is the dumbing down of slashdot, once an insightful and witty place, into a forum of "firm grasp of the obvious" articles and posts.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
I too have had such an experience. I work at a fairly small resort on the beach. We offer WiFi via two access points in the resort. There is such interference, only one person can use the WiFi at a time. If two people connect to the WiFi, the connection drop altogether. We have theorized that this is the result of a couple filing cabinets, and a wall. The WiFi is 2.4GHz, and it cannot even penetrate a single wall!
I've done wireless assessments and installations for offices, hotels, school buildings (think bomb shelters) and even manufacturing plants. Anything IS possible, but not if you hire a kid recently graduated from ITT Tech(as an example only) to do it. I'd take a recent physicist graduate first because at least they would understand wave propagation. The use of tools such as Air Magnet make performing such an assessment easier, but a good tool won't fix ignorance.
This actually begs of a greater question within IT - that of the influx of semi-trained, unskilled workers. Ours is the only profession without a professional organization. We have no entrance exam, no licensing structure, no board review.
And DON'T tell me that Sylvan/Prometric certification in any sense means squat. I have no respect for a testing method wherein the correct answer is presented simply for the applicant to pick from. and YES I have them, many of them (MS, Novell, Solaris, Cisco) thus my disdain.
I think we as a profession need to adopt some form of 'guild' structure. 2-yrs as an apprentice followed by a board review WHERE YOU ACTUALLY PERFORM WORK(Think the CCIE practical exam where you configure otherwise blank routers) [Yeah I have that too]. 5-yrs as a journeyman where you expand and deepen your skill followed by another board review to obtain a Mastery level in a particular discipline.
The tradesmen have had this structure for hundreds of years. Lawyers, Doctors and Accountants all have an entrance exam.
Why do we in IT think we're different.
Just my $0.02
Dennis Dumont
I implement Wireless networks for Cisco inside their offices. All of the issues raised in the article are issues that can be easily addressed. The issues these businesses face are due to lack of planning, experience, or the appropriate hardware. The wireless networks I implement are available everywhere from the elevator to the bathroom, support VPN users, corporate users, anonymous users, and it does all this while being extremely secure. This isn't a matter of the technology lacking, its a matter of knowing how to implement it properly.
Of course, it goes without saying that encryption should always be used, the tighter the better!
Wifi is necessary in some cases - casual/traveling/mobile (like cameras)
Wire works everytime -
Wifi was sold to admin as cheaper than wiring the building the little details like
reliability and security were not covered just 'we can get you up quickly'
VPNs require exactly the same amount of processing power on an access point as any other network application. The access point doesn't encrypt or decrypt anything on a VPN. All it sees are packets and frames, regardless of the application.
Slow Down, Cowboy! It's been 60 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment.
First generation was "Thick" access points individually managed.
Second generation was the first generation of "Thin" access points.
Third generation is "Thin" access points using CAP-WAP tunneling to a central management platform.
For the First & Second generations we had consultants in to do surveys and radio measurements, we spent days roaming the site with radio gear and plans working out the best locations for the AP.
That turned out the be as much use as a chocolate teapot.
With the third generation (which is a forklift upgrade for the 1st & 2nd generation) we've gone with the scientific approach of "suck it and see". We ordered about 10% more access points than we had existing and when we've finished the install we'll go back round with our survey gear and fill in the dead spots.
Things I've learned from trying to get this right:-
Architects hate you They want the APs to be hidden, this is bad m'kay. Our second generation install we let the architects dictate where the APs could go. We've landed up with them 30' above the floor above a false ceiling. To maintain these we now have to close the building and get a cherry picker (which we're not allowed to use - it has to be a member of the facilities team) Outdoor coverage is a bitch. Lightning arresters, which are mandatory, cause significant loss as does "low loss" cable. Omni direction antennae are prety useless as generally you've got to mount them near a wall which nukes your signal. Directional ones are much better, but require more access points to get the same coverage. Things you wouldn't expect to impact the signal can bite you in the arse. UV filter glass (40db loss!), magnetic whiteboards, glass wall partitions. Out door it's even worse - forget it if you've got trees out there, oh and fog - fog kills the signal pretty dead. Never try to survey a building that's not there. This may seem obvious, but a lot of our installation had to be done from plans, so we had to estimate signal propagation - this doesn't work. Especially when the users of the building decided that what they really want is a nice metal mesh put into the walls, that really helps the signal. On the plus side - the 3rd generation ap & management station are making our life much easier. We can actually see where clients are now, and the APs know about each other and manage their radio intelligently (and it seems to work!)The headquarters of a large insurance company is in our town. Most of the staff have only a dumb terminal. There is no way they can get data onto the network and off it except by keyboard and screen. They are very anal about security. Guess what, nobody from their company has ever lost a laptop filled with sensitive data.
You don't even know what you don't know dude.
i've found that wireless networking and roaming profiles don't work on cheap linksys access points. they just can't handle the packet flooding.
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
well of course it complicates things to a certain degree.. i think it's ridiculous to waste your emotions on getting headaches with wireless networks.. why any company would make their wireless network so important that it deserves getting a headache over is something I can't understand.. no company should rely on a wireless network to get their every day work done.. just plug your damn laptop in one of the ethernet jacks that *should* be placed in every important room in a building.. there's nothing i hate more than when i get phone calls from some idiot realtor, or someone who thinks their job is so much more important than anyone elses, about their wireless internet not working..
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
To crack a secure wired network you need physical access. You can't just point an antenna at it.
Denying physical access is way more secure than any amount of protocols and encryption.
WiFi isn't a free ride. If you need it for serious business, you buy serious equipment installed and configured by serious individuals.
I'm dead serious.
Next week: Mail servers: it can lead to headaches.
I bought an Apple AirPort Base Station in 1999 for $299 and plugged it onto a broadband connection in the garage ceiling under the house, turned on the encryption, closed the network, and for 5 years after that computers came and went and all you ever had to do was tell the computer the network name and enter a password and everyone was on the Internet. We had occasional business meetings where you would have 5 notebooks and no problem, you are all on the Internet. New computer? It takes less than a minute to get it onto the Internet.
If I'm doing that at home with almost zero configuration, since 1999, then I have no sympathy if your I-T staff can't make it work seamlessly for you in 2007. Crying about it is even more embarrassing. Wi-Fi is almost 10 years old now. Get your fucking shit together.
That can be EASILY remedied by turning on the "Isolated AP" feature (or equivalent) on most modern wireless routers.
That would prevent clients on the AP from seeing each other and make the concern a moot point...
On a related point, the FCC should move their ass and open up another small segment of spectrum for wireless systems, which doesn't share it's existence with cordless phones, EMI emissions from Microwave Ovens and other 2.4GHz devices. Of course there's 802.11a, but that's a little expensive and has a shorter range in comparison to 802.11b/g. Too bad 802.11n didn't call for a new segment of the frequency spectrum.
-My $0.02
I mean, really, it's friggin' obvious. Every one of these wireless companies throws out a new router every month, then spends the next six to 12 months uploading firmware fixes for that model to their Web sites because of the bugs. It's obvious that the whole thing is being driven by marketing, not the actual technology.
They simply can't make the stuff work reliably with their OWN hardware, let alone connecting to anybody else's hardware.
And when you add in the flaky wireless software drivers and management software - good luck with that.
If you're going to use wireless in a business, put one wireless AP for every one or two users at most. And don't even bother if those users need to run Microsoft Access databases over the network, because it won't work. Make sure all the servers are wired, the main Internet access is wired, and the only thing the wireless APs do is connect one or two users per AP to a wired connection to the rest of the network. That way, you avoid stringing wire all over the office, but you still have solid wired connections where it matters. How you can set that up for any significant number of people is beyond me, however. This sort of solution would only work with maybe 25 users. Maybe you could do it on a floor by floor basis and sill run wire between floors only.
Even then, if you don't own your own building, and/or have office buildings around you with wireless using tenants, you're going to have interference problems unless you spend the big bucks for high-powered Cisco gear that can swamp the other guys lower cost stuff power output.
When wireless works - in a home with no interference problems - or in an Internet cafe - it's great. When it doesn't, it's a nightmare to fix.
It's not a technology to base a business on. It's just too complicated and it just isn't reliable enough.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
The Intel wireless software works better than Windows native, too.
What do you expect from software that includes a "repair" function for every connection, and all that button does is restart the stack?
Interestingly enough, I used to curse linux's "Network Manager" because it was even worse than the dreck Microsoft ships. The difference is, over a fairly short time Network Manager has vastly improved, and now (on Ubuntu at least, though not on Fedora) it is much much more stable and configurable than the Windows equivalent on the same hardware (my laptops are dual-boot).
The linux wifi and nm guys shouldn't get too cocky - there's still LOTS of room for improvement - but they've come a long way in a relatively short time, and should be proud of that. Yay team!
I certainly agree.
:(
For some really stupid reason, the designer of my flat decided to put the one and only telephone socket in the kitchen next to the fridge, of all places. When I installed my wireless d-link router in the kitchen - with the idea of using the wireless capability throughout the flat, I found that the signal barely reached outside the room. Consequently, I have had to run an extension cable from the socket into the living room and install the router there. Whilst this gives adequate signal strength for the bathroom and bedrooms, with the extension having to run behind the fridge, I am getting severe degredation on the line. To the point where I'm paying for 8meg and generally getting 0.7 - 1meg connection speeds
Biomech
It's true that 802.11 connections are unreliable, yet people often try to treat them like they are with complex, coupled network services. Unfortunately, there isn't any other wireless standard that's as commonplace and cheap and relatively easy to set up as 802.11 yet.
My personal recommendation can be found at http://www.radio-ip.com/