On Jul 8, 21:11, Jules Richardson wrote:
> On Thu, 2004-07-08 at 20:03, Pete Turnbull wrote:
> > Yeah, we keep getting asked why we're not putting wireless in our
> > residences, offices, and everywhere else..
>
> Glad it's not just me :)
>
> > The fact is that wired is
> > cheaper, especially given the steel in many of the buildings,
>
> I wonder if it is that buildings in the UK tend to have a lot more
steel
> in the walls than elsewhere in the world?
No, I don't think so :-) We had a guy from Intel here a few weeks ago,
talking about Centrino technology, and wireless is a key part of that.
He was someone senior from EMEA marketing but was well genned-up
technically, and was quite open about some of the limitations nd what
people had found in practice.
> Thing the worries me is that a lot of schools seem to be upgrading
here,
> presumably at vast expense, only to find that it doesn't do the job.
Well, it depends what the job is, how many users there are
simultaneously, and so on. If you're talking about a primary school
where there's one incoming 512kbps broadband line, only a few
computers, and they get moved about, it might make sense to put in
minimal cabling to a couple of staff rooms, and use wireless for the
rest. If you're talking about our offices and study bedrooms, where
there will be lots of simultaneous users (and students generate an
amazing amount of traffic), wiring is cheaper. We did the study.
Twice. Don't forget you need an infrastructure to support the
wireless APs. In fact, I came across a paper by one of the members of
the 802.whatever committe which indicated that in many contexts,
wireless mean more infrastructure, not less (because of the number of
APs, power points or power-over-Ethernet, etc etc, and you still need
the backbone and the fibre between buildings).
> I'm not actually aware how the prices for wireless compare to
Ethernet
> cards, hubs, cabling etc. so I can't say how much a fresh wireless
> installation would cost against a more traditional setup.
Depends on the facilities and bandwidth you need. We get a very good
deal on certain types of switches, and cabling isn't very expensive per
outlet if it's done in harmony with other works. On the other hand, to
use wireless for the student network, we'd need an awful lot of APs,
still need cable to get to them, fibre between the buildings, and
although the switches would be fewer in number, we'd need a lot of PoE
ports which cost money, and we'd be using Cisco Aironet 1200s or
similar (I forget what the model number is for the 11a/b/g version),
with full management facilites, VLAN support, panel antennae, etc. We
get a really good price on those too, but they still cost several times
as much as SOHO APs and either don't give a great bandwidth or don't
cover a large number of users. Plus it takes just one oik with his own
AP (which we ban, for reasons that have to do with experience :-)) to
disrupt our nicely laid out coverage.
This is getting a bit off-topic :-) Wireless may be classic, but I'm
not sure wireless ethernet is ;-)
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
Received on Thu Jul 08 2004 - 17:33:04 BST