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  5. Xirrus Advocates For Pure Wireless Environments: Page 2 of 2
Wireless Infrastructure

Xirrus Advocates For Pure Wireless Environments: Page 2 of 2

Anyone with a pulse in IT knows that wireless networking is muscling out wired Ethernet at home and in business. At a recent Aruba Networks' conference, I was struck by the real-world relevance of the event's running mantra of "wireless where you can, wired where you must." That simple phrase is playing out in my own very large WLAN, where wireless pervades as the main connectivity option for most users, with the patch cable still revered for a shrinking minority of devices. In a recent TCMnet i
Lee Badman
August 13, 2010

If you have an open mind and are getting ready to jump from "old wireless" to 802.11n, Xirrus may be worth looking at if for no other reason than keeping to-the-AP cabling costs at a minimum in a large environment. But can you realize Dirk Gates's vision of abandoning wires completely? That depends on a lot of factors.

For example, I frogged around for several days trying to get a couple of networked printers working with their manufacturer-provided wireless NICs on my 802.1x-secured WLAN. Regardless of how I tweaked settings, I could not get the printer to go. Even upper-level tech support at the Big Computer Company couldn't help, as their printer folk really didn't seem to "get" wireless.

So... no wireless printing in my case. Many gaming consoles can't do 802.1x-secured wireless either. Then there are machines that actually burn up most of a wired gig pipe that probably would buckle a bit in even the fastest shared-media wireless environment. For me, I'm still more comfortable with Aruba's fortune cookie fodder "wireless where you can, wired where you must." Even so, I can picture the eventual realization of the Xirrus "100% wireless" dream--once all the ancillary device manufacturers get their acts together, and we can figure out a way to make high-bandwidth machines not wilt over shared wireless connections. 

 

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