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WLAN Off-the-shelf products may appeal, but it is worth remembering that you get what you pay for
Tech talk
When a company with up to 100 staff considers installing a wireless local area network, is it OK to go to the local PC store and buy a cheap, shrink-wrapped device, or should it spend several times the amount on an "enterprise class" product?
A business may have dozens of branch offices that are ideal candidates for adopting a wireless strategy. Is it best to choose the same product already installed at the head office - probably a fully featured WLan switch - or a budget, off-the-shelf alternative? It is an interesting debate, which the likes of Symbol and Trapeze Networks - enterprise-class WLan switch suppliers whose products my company Broadband Testing has tested in the labs - are involved in constantly.
After all, if a business is looking at paying maybe 10 times more for what amounts, in its simplest form, to adding wireless connectivity to the Lan and probably the internet, are all those enterprise features really needed?
Maybe we should go back a step and define the difference between the two extremes.
Equally, we should add a third option which sits, pricewise, in between: the enterprise class fat access point. This is the typical initial WLan product, where all the intelligence resides, and which is attached to any old Ethernet switch, plus client adapters, power injectors and software.
Cisco, for example, offers both the cheap-and-cheerful option (Linksys) as well as its own, Cisco-branded Aironet enterprise fat access point product. The difference? Lots more features and a much fatter price tag for the latter.
Cisco's recent acquisition of Airespace means it now offers a switched WLan product as well. The switched alternative takes all the "intelligence" away from the access point, instead using a switch as the control centre, and the access points become simple, almost throwaway technology.
The obvious benefit here is that if they break they can be cheaply and easily replaced, and you don't lose your wireless configurations. Also, if someone steals one, there is no valuable information on it that...