A PC Week Labs Evaluation at the S.C. Johnson School of
Management at Cornell University shows that wireless technology is finally
ready for prime time—for a price that won't bleed companies dry. The
management school needs more space for students to work in teams of four
to six for course projects. The Technology Services Department determined
that the cost of adding extra network ports in common areas would be
prohibitive—upward of $1,000 per port—and the project was put on hold.
When the IEEE approved its 802.11b standard protocol for 11M-bps
wireless LAN connectivity and equipment became available earlier this
year, Kevin Baradet, network systems director for the management school
and a PC Week Corporate Partner, decided the time was right to explore a
wireless solution for the under used spaces of the school.
"Our graduate students work in teams on several projects a year and
increasingly needed more space to meet and share information," Baradet
said. "The Johnson Management School is housed in a beautiful historic
building, and the cost of adding more space onto the building was out of
the question. We looked at making use of our underutilized spaces—such as
the atrium, dining room and breakout rooms—and wireless LAN technology was
the only option that made sense."
This PC Week Labs Eval explores 802.11b wireless networking solutions
for departments and large organizations and examines how IT managers can
use wireless LANs to complement their wired networks.
Wireless access to an Ethernet LAN is a critical issue for many
organizations, a fact borne out by the number of PC Week Corporate
Partners (and the diversity of their companies) who signed on for this
Eval at Cornell. In addition to Baradet, the team comprised Kevin Wilson,
of Duke Energy Corp.; Erich Berman, of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance
Co.; and Rusty Smith, an associate of Corporate Partner coordinator and
University of Wisconsin Advanced Technology Analyst Judy Brown. Read their
opinions here.
The Eval team tested 802.11b wireless solutions from 3Com Corp., Cisco
Systems Inc. and Lucent Technologies Inc. The Eval was performed on-site
at Cornell, in Ithaca, N.Y., and one solution was tested per day.
Each of the tested 802.11b-compliant solutions consisted of access
points, essentially wireless transceivers that connect directly to an
Ethernet LAN via a built-in Ethernet port, and wireless PC Cards, which
allow a mobile user equipped with a notebook to connect to an access
point. The access point then admits the user to the wired LAN.
Eval tests included site surveys, installation and configuration of
access points and client PC Cards, interoperability tests, load testing,
measurement of upload and download performance over predetermined
distances, measurement of streaming media performance, and administration
tool analysis (see
reviews).
All of the systems performed well. They all adhere closely to the
802.11b standard and are more alike than they are different. But there are
some important differences, particularly in the software tools used to
configure and manage the access points.
Cisco and Lucent have encryption (up to 128-bit Wireless Equivalent
Privacy), sufficient for all but the most security-conscious sites. 3Com
plans to add WEP encryption as a firmware upgrade this month.
All of the judges agreed that Lucent's Orinoco solution stood head and
shoulders above Cisco's Aironet 340 Series system and 3Com's AirConnect
line and should be the first place to start when considering an 802.11b
wireless LAN system.
Lucent's Orinoco 802.11b line is well-suited for everything from small
offices to corporate departments to building-to-building connectivity.
The Lucent solution also allows companies to start small and grow their
wireless implementations.
"All of the products we tested stack up pretty well against each other,
and all of them adhere to the 802.11b standard, so it doesn't matter too
much which vendor you pick if you're going to be changing vendors from
time to time," Baradet said. "If you're going to stick with one vendor,
though, and you're concerned with upgradability, go with Lucent."
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