Does 802.11n Spell the 'End of Ethernet'?

alphadogg writes "Is the advent of the 802.11n wireless standard the 'end of Ethernet'... at least in terms of client access to the LAN? That's the provocative title, and thesis, of a new report in which the author began looking into the question when he heard a growing number of clients asking whether it was time to discontinue wired LAN deployments for connecting clients. Would 11n, the next generation high-throughput Wi-Fi, make the RJ45 connector in the office wall as obsolete as gaslights?"

Comments

Um, no.

[morgan_greywolf]

When the Porcine Aviation Assocation makes WiFi as secure as wired LAN, then we'll see the end of Ethernet. Until then, no.

Re:Um, no.

[Praedon]

I think we will always have wired networks, for the simple fact that as technology progresses, so do the methods of spying and such. It's much easier to eavesdrop on WiFi than it is on a wired network. You would need physical access to the wired network in order to carry out your plans for espionage.

Re:Um, no.

[niceone]

And that's going to happen just after the Porcine Aviation Assocation makes WiFi actually run at the speeds that it says in the headlines.

Re:Um, no.

[cayenne8]

Yep...I was thinking one word when I read this:

SECURITY.

Re:Um, no.

[Jaqenn]

I agree that wired LAN is more secure than WiFi. But can't you do some pretty scary signal reconstruction by reading electromagnetic noise coming off your network cable? It's my understanding that this can be done from X yards away, through walls, whatever.

Yeah, that moves your vulnerability away from the hobbyist tier and into the professional tier, but honestly, which one scares you more?

Guess you could always wrap your cable in tin-foil.

Re:Um, no.

[nine-times]

Right. There are too many reasons to use ethernet, and security is just one of them. Ethernet is also more reliable, and it's still faster. 802.11n is not running as fast as 1Gbps (which is what both my home and work network are running at). Give it a couple years, and we'll probably all be running 10Gbps networks, and though wireless speeds will improve too, I see no reason to believe that they'll ever catch up. Also, wired connections are more reliable, easier to control, etc.

Now, I don't see much reason to string ethernet through people's homes, at least not most of the time. Use WPA, secure each of your computers (password protect them and firewall any services you aren't using, preferably don't use Windows). You'll be fine, and 802.11n is probably way faster than any internet connection you might have.

Re:Um, no.

[bleh-of-the-huns]

Yes, its called STP instead of UTP...

Re:Um, no.

[fbjon]

Not to mention: until someone figures out a way of turning radio from shared to switched medium for cheap, it ain't replacing anything.

Re:Um, no.

[Tiger4]

I agree that wired LAN is more secure than WiFi. But can't you do some pretty scary signal reconstruction by reading electromagnetic noise coming off your network cable? It's my understanding that this can be done from X yards away, through walls, whatever.
Where X is 1 - 3 meters. If you are running a Must Be Secure network in a single cubicle of a hostile cubicle farm, or up against the wall of an apartment, you might have trouble. The vast majority of people are inherently secure, at least against this particular threat.

Guess you could always wrap your cable in tin-foil.
Shielded Twisted Pair will deal with this for you. It has been on the market for the past 2 or 3 decades. Maybe more.

Re:Um, no.

[swillden]

Now, I don't see much reason to string ethernet through people's homes, at least not most of the time.

I do. Media servers. Although the theoretical data rate of 802.11n is high enough for several HD video streams, in practice you only get a third of the theoretical data rate reliably, making it barely adequate for 1-2 streams. Start actually moving those files around to store, say, on a laptop drive for watching later, and you'll really find wireless inadequate.

You'll be fine, and 802.11n is probably way faster than any internet connection you might have.

There are places in the world where that is not true today, where 100Mbps Internet connections are common. I expect we'll see that even in the US, as fiber-to-the-home initiatives are rolled out. There's one in my neck of the woods, called UTOPIA. Right now they're only providing 10Mbps (symmetric), but the plan is to ramp that up to 100Mbps in the future.

Re:Um, no.

[somersault]

If they really want in, they're going to get in. Most people's houses are going to be pretty easily accessible compared to trying to crack WPA wireless encryption.

Re:Um, no.

[NeilTheStupidHead]

In my apt building, someone just moved in and brought an 802.11n supported router with them. All of a sudden the 10 or so 802.11g routers in the building have all but stopped working. I used to be able to pick up my wireless connection anywhere in the building, but now I can't see it at all if I'm more than two rooms away and the connection constantly drops. I've talked to some of my neighbours and they have been having the same difficulties.

Re:Um, no.

[The -e**(i*pi)]

ever hear of managed switches
they not only can require registration before turning on a port, but allow only one specific mac per port and either notify you, record all the data, and or shut off any port that is doing anything funy with mac addresses.

they also have a VLAN capacility that makes virtual switches connecting any ports in your whole building so noone but those on those specific ports can listen in.

and hacking a CISCO switch is no easy task.

Re:Um, no.

[cayenne8]

"If they really want in, they're going to get in. Most people's houses are going to be pretty easily accessible compared to trying to crack WPA wireless encryption."

I dunno about that....at least in the Southeastern part of the US. Once you get past the locked doors, you run the risk of dogs and the inhabitants with their guns drawn and ready to fire.

Somehow I think sitting out in a car a distance away trying to hack the wireless is a little safer. It does and the very least, make the 'head shot' a little harder.

:-)

Re:Um, no.

[InvalidError]

Security is one reason I prefer wired over wireless... and since most of my networked equipment stays put in one room, extra cables are non-issue.

The other reason is reliability: I can count on my 100BaseTX network delivering 7-9MB/s with very little chance of external influences causing my link to either slow down or die. With wireless, I am at the mercy of nearby interference sources including cordless phones, electrical appliances, various gadgets and other wireless networking equipment, any of which can cause the link to do a number of undesirable things from retraining to going down.

There are two reasons I got WiFi: 1) my previous router was dying and 2) I got a laptop. I only use WiFi with the laptop but whenever I do large transfers, I still hook it up to Ethernet since it is ~5X as fast and never goes down. 802.11g is good enough for internet access and moderate file copying with my two laptops so I most likely won't be bothering with 802.11n until my 802.11g router either dies or becomes a broadband bottleneck.

BTW, it is possible to eavesdrop on Ethernet without touching the cables by capturing EMI from the UTP cables - there was a proof of concept for this some years ago where they managed to reconstruct a B&W image from a VGA cable by placing the receiver antenna ~1m from the cable using commodity components. That's pretty far from monitoring from a van parked a few houses down the road but it certainly proves the feasibility.

wait

[wwmedia]

didnt they say the same about 802.11g not too long ago?

and what do we have now? both systems coexisting with each other

same gonna happen again

No

[DJ Jones]

RJ45 jacks will never be obsolete for one reason... Security.

And I don't know what you're talking about, I still use gaslights.

Re:No

[AK Marc]

The wireless solution is. Physical access is typically very easy to obtain. Much easier than cracking AES or finding a way to get a copy of the WPA PSK or an account in the EAP server.

Physical access is useless in a properly configured wired network. Have you ever heard of 802.1x? It's still considered a part of the best that wireless has to offer for security. Do you know what 802.1x was created for? Wired networks. If you properly configure 802.1x on a wired network, you not only need physical access, but you need to authenticate to be able to reach anything except the authentication server. You will get no broadcasts forwarded to your port for sniffing. You will not be able to send anything out of the network. You don't need encryption if you don't forward a single packet to that port other than the deny messages from the authentication server. Of course, you can encrypt over ethernet as well, but it isn't necessary with a properly configured network, even without physical security to the ports.

Wireless took Ethernet's leftovers and did the best they could, and it is still less than Ethernet. Equally secure networks *always* leave the wired network more secure. Anyone that thinks otherwise doesn't know how to configure a wired network.

Shared medium.

[saintlupus]

I can't wait for wireless to take over everything. Collisions and shared bandwidth are awesome. I miss hubs so much.

--saint

Yes, of course

[blueZ3]

This is totally a replacement for wired connectivity, because in a building with three or four hundred computer users, there won't be any radio interference between wireless cards. I'm sure that there won't be any issues in high-density deployments. I mean, the four PCs in my house never, ever have any reduction in speed when they're all connected simultaneously.

What do they teach them in schools these days?

Re:Yes, of course

[winkydink]

What do they teach them in schools these days?

Had a look at Myspace or Facebook? Sigh.

Doubt it.

[ynososiduts]

Unless buildings are made of less concrete and brick. My school has a wireless network, but it's spotty due to the big maze of concrete and brick buildings. You only get a connection when the room you're in has a wireless bridge, but every room has a RJ45 port. There really is no question of signal strength when talking about wired networks.

Yeah OK

[betterunixthanunix]

Wireless will never beat Ethernet, if for no other reason, simple reliability. I have seen odd things happen with radio waves, like have a very good signal in one spot, and almost no signal just a few feet away. Or getting the signal strength affect by where some random person is standing. Or signals not passing through walls (getting a cable through a wall requires no more than a drill). Or microwave ovens killing the signal.

The strangest was a friend who used a linksys router with the SSID "linksys" and WEP encryption, who lived next door to someone using the same SSID but no encryption. Oh yeah, the wireless network managers on various OS's had a field day with that one. Ethernet just doesn't have those problems, so it will always been needed when mobility is less important than reliability.

Reasons not to change.

[GodCandy]

First I will admit. I have an 802.11n setup at my house for my laptop and a desktop on the far side of the house. It works well for this.

The issues are as follows.
Security: There is little or none. All of your transactions are flying through the air and anyone with the proper equipment (which can be obtained at the local electronics store for very little money) can intercept those packets. Even if you bother to use encryption all that has to be done is some processing to "crack" the encryption. Without breaking into my house/office and tying into my physical copper network there is no way to intercept packets on a copper network.

Stability: I cant speak for 802.11n as of yet. My AP has never been rebooted and my clients stay conected. However my prior 802.11x products were somewhat less stable.

Speed: 802.11x is a bus topology much like a hub. True they are running a great deal of bandwidth now. For few users this is great however what happens when you have 20 users on the same access point sharing the same bandwidth.

I do however see uses in business for this. I don't think at this time it is the end all replacement for the simple switch and the complicated wiring closet yet.

Don't forget denial-of-service

[coyote-san]

Don't forget that there are multiple aspects to security. You don't want the sleazy competitor sniffing your network, but you don't want them blasting your network out of existence two days before the RFQ is due either. The bad actor could be hard to track down if they're using a highly directional antenna and an illegal amplifier.

Shared bandwidth

[gravis777]

The problem that clients in our building seem to neglect is that, yeah, while we are running G, which is 56Mbps, that does not mean that it will be only half the speed of their 100 Mbps ethernet connection, its generally much slower. The problem is, on ethernet, you have a 100 Mbps connection straight to the switch, dedicated to you. Over the wireless, you are sharing that 54Mbps connection with 50 other people in your area, so you are not getting 54 Mbps, you are getting between 1-5 Mbps. This is why you ge an excellent signal, then almost cannot browse the internet. i think we finally got it through most of our users minds that the wireless was there as a convienince, not at a replacement for the ethernet, and most will now use their ethernet cable.