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Time To Cut the Ethernet Cable?
coondoggie writes in with a Network World piece that begins "A range of companies with wireless LANs are discovering that 50% to 90% or more of Ethernet ports now go unused, because Wi-Fi has become so prevalent. They look at racks of unused switches, ports, Ethernet wall jacks, the cabling that connects them all, the yearly maintenance charges for unused switches, electrical charges, and cooling costs. So why not formally drop what many end users have already discarded — the Ethernet cable? 'There's definitely a right-sizing going on,' says Michael King, research director, mobile and wireless, for Gartner. 'By 2011, 70% of all net new ports will be wireless. People are saying, "we don't need to be spending so much on a wired infrastructure if no one is using it."' ... There is debate over whether WLANs, including the high-throughput 802.11n networks, will be able to deliver enough bandwidth." Cisco, which makes both wireless and wired gear, has a spokesman quoted calling this idea of right-sizing a "shortsighted message from a wireless-only provider. It's penny-wise and pound-foolish."
Bingo!
Because of security concerns my employer does not and will never have (that I can see) wireless access to the network.
It's just too large of a security risk when you have any sort of sensitive information floating around.
RFI.
As CIO at a radio astronomical observatory with instruments receiving in the 2.3GHz band, I can say that we prohibit WiFi here completely. We went as far as running shielded Cat5e and Cat6, and building the data center into a screened room to reduce the RFI. Ferrite beads on all cabling going into and out of the data center are installed as well.
Wired Ethernet is the only thing working here.
A company I worked for tried cutting the cord and replacing everything with dumb terminal-like laptops, only to discover that the infrastructure couldn't handle so many simultaneous connections. It was a complete failure because the wireless density and capacity just could not support everyone going wireless.
Besides, what they forget to address is this thing called sunk cost. You've purchased that hardware and infrastructure. You're not going to get any $$$ by replacing everything with wireless anyway.
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
Because I can hook onto your wireless network from the car park.
Exactly. At home I've had wireless for a decade. But now with the ubiquity of wireless ADSL modems, there are about 15 hotspots within range and I can't get a stable connection anymore. I can't wire the rental appt I'm in, so I'm using ethernet over electric wires and it works great. Wireless is already dead for people who live in dense urban environment.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Let me be the first to say that you have a really cool job.
Let's see if I can best that... C;-)
In Antarctica we can't use CAT cables because their dielectric properties change at extreme cold temperatures (-80C) and they run like crap. The cables also turn to raw spaghetti and break at the slightest touch.
So we use wireless (absolutely no interferences there !), or fiber, which doesn't change properties with the cold. Usually both as a backup in case a snowmachine runs in a cable (we can't put them in the 'ground' or they would disappear under the accumulated snow over a few years, so we place them on rows of low poles).
Non-Linux Penguins ?
having fun with unsecured wifi.. a good freind of mine lived in college appartments. noticing plenty of unsecured networks in the appartment building he took a small linux box stuck 3 or 4 can't remember exactly wifi cards in it and set it up for his lan in a bridged mode to round robin route his local nat'ed lan.. for any single download it was normal cable modem speeds .. for bit torrent wow was that fast..
he did that for 3 years.. kinda sad when you think about it
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
I can attest to that, mostly because my neighbors have those multi-frequency spamming "super" access points.
Wireless pretty much doesn't work between 5pm and 9pm upstairs in my house.
Sleep: A completely inadequate substitution for Caffeine.