LESSONS IN GOING WIRELESS
A recent wireless network installation reveals some sound advice

By Steve Taylor

LAPTOP May 2003

A small manufacturing company in New York needed a way for its traveling salespeople to connect to the company network on those rare occasions when they were actually in the office—without tearing up the building or hanging spools of ugly wire.
They turned to network consultant Seth Melendez and his company Ware Geeks. After looking at the layout, a 3,000-square- foot building with offices in front and the factory in the back, Melendez suggested a wireless network.
Melendez installed four Linksys Instant Wireless Network Access Points (model WAP11) in the compound. Melendez chose Linksys because of the company’s reputation for reliability, affordable prices, and, perhaps most importantly, solid technical support. “Prior to buying Linksys’ products I called their support line and liked the responses and quick resolution,” he said.
At a cost of about $100 per access point and a range of up to 1,640 feet, these 802.11bdevices were perfect for Melendez’ customer. After testing signal strength and throughput, proper placement of the four units assured that every spot in the building offered a good signal. The access points were set up in ad hoc mode, so that devices being carried from place to place could bounce from one access point to another without having to reconnect. Melendez also went with Linksys for its network adapters, choosing the WUSB11, a wireless USB network adapter that costs about $50.USB seemed the best choice because the network had to work with many different notebook configurations. “Some of the salesmen already had something they needed plugged into the PC Card slot. We decided on USB adapters, because they are much easier to install. You just plug them in and they work,” he said.
During the installation, Melendez noticed that when employees made a mistake scanning the inventory on the floor, they had to walk all the way back to the front office to correct it. By incorporating Palm m125 handhelds ($139) with the Xircom Wireless LAN Module ($239) into the network, the correction could be made immediately. They also installed a few HP LaserJet 4M Plus printers ($1,300) on the factory floor, along with Linksys Instant Wireless Print Servers (WPS11; $130) to allow for immediate printing of inventory labels, saving yet another trip to the front office.
In fact, Melendez said, “When they saw that the wireless setup exceeded their expectations, they decided to expand the uses of the wireless devices to all departments—even desktops were included.” Chalk up another success story for the wireless revolution.
So, why is the company hesitant to mention its name or exact location? Because the network almost works too well. “Even with cinder block walls there was virtually no drop-off in performance if you went outside the building. We found that the throughput was just as good from three blocks away,” Melendez said.
Needless to say, security was an important consideration on this job, as it should be in any wireless deployment, large or small. Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is a good start, but it is known to be crackable. Melendez, a former bodyguard and security consultant, took lessons from his former profession and used the layered security approach, including VPN for authentication to the main network, and the Wi-Fi security standards 802.11i and 802.1x. These standards, created by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), improve on WEP and allow for extra protection from intruders.

Picking the Right Protocol
Why did the client go with 802.11b? Besides costing less than the 802.11a protocol, 802.11b is better suited to the factory environment. According to a white paper from NETGEAR, a leading manufacturer of wireless networking equipment, 802.11b is the best choice when range requirements are important and end users are not too densely populated. Not surprisingly, 802.11b is particularly appropriate for small businesses, warehouses, and factories.
While 802.11g is already gaining a lot of momentum, at the time of this installation, 802.11g equipment wasn’t available. But even now, 802.11b is still probably the best way to go for business use. Mark Margevicius, a research director at Gartner Research, counsels against choosing 802.11g at least for a few more months.
“The problem with 802.11g is that it’s not a fully baked standard yet. My advice to clients is to ignore it until about the end of2003,” he said. “We don’t know whether the light at the end of the tunnel is daylight or an oncoming train.”
Margevicius also prefers the 802.11b standard over 802.11a for both small and very large companies. “There are still some issues around 802.11a if you go to other geographies, and that’s not good for my corporate accounts that are international travelers.”
“We can make do with 802.11b until 802.11g gets fully ratified,” Margevicius continued. “The products will come out when they’re ready. It’s like in the early days of Ethernet, with multiple competing standards. You don’t want an infrastructure based on a standard that might not be a standard a few months from now. So I’m saying go with 802.11b for now and then upgrade to 802.11g later.”
The small-factory client made a couple of smart decisions along the way and learned a couple of lessons, as well. A frequently heard refrain in this column is to let the business need drive the technology decisions, not the other way around. In this case the company didn’t say that they wanted wireless. They had a need—connecting their salesmen to the network—and that need was ultimately met with wireless technology.
While on a budget, they were also not afraid of spending a little money. Ware Geeks fees vary depending on the work, but the total consulting fee on this job was about $2,500, a bargain for the kind of expertise a small shop is unlikely to have in house.
The firm started small to get a sense of how the system would work, and used wireless as a supplement to the wired network, not as a replacement. And, when they found pleasant surprises, they went with the flow, solving problems they didn’t even know they had. It turned out to be a successful project that was cost-effective, showed immediate results, and was easily expandable.