An Overview of Wireless Networking & Why It's Necessary

Are you familiar with wireless networking? This IT strategy has exploded in popularity over the past few years, almost to the point of being able to replace the traditional plug in networks. Whether you’re interested in pursuing the concept for the first time with an IT consulting company or are well-versed in traditional networking, there are many benefits of this approach to network design and management.

What is Wireless Networking?

Wireless networking isn’t a new concept; just think about how hotels offer WiFi for guests or coffee shops have a public network. The same concept applies to your enterprise. How does it work? Simply put, “Wireless networks use electromagnetic waves to communicate information from one point to another without relying on any physical connection.”

Aruba explains that adopting wireless networking isn’t just about performance, it’s about transforming your workplace into a modern digital environment in order to become more flexible and attract top talent and millennial employees who are accustomed to a wireless world.

How is Wireless Networking Different from Traditional Networking?

There’s a clear difference between a wireless network and a legacy network. Aruba states, “Traditional networking models were built on the notion of static desktop clients talking to a server, creating the classic Local Area Network (LAN) architecture. This model has served us well for 20+ years because traditional application environments have had long deployment lifecycles, a plan and approval driven operational model that was optimized for price/performance.”

“With the shift to mobile-cloud, today’s application environment measures lifecycles in hours and days with a continuous integration model that is optimized for innovation. In this environment, static networking paradigms fundamentally offer no real value when the network needs to adapt in real time to changing conditions in the application, network, and business environment.”

Using this approach, your enterprise’s entire network is fully primed to interact with mobile devices and IoT enabled technology. This setup can be accomplished in as little as a few hours, compared to days with a legacy network. This is because the single wireless network architecture is designed to adapt to any size of business.

4 Wireless Networking Considerations

Before you set up your wireless network, there are four considerations to keep in mind, according to Network Lessons:

1. Determine Your Desired Coverage: Decide where you’ll place the network’s access points and determine the coverage frequency needed to make sure your whole company received a signal. Keep in mind that different materials may interfere with the optimal signal.
2. Plan for Potential Interference: Pay attention to potential frequencies which may impact your signal quality, and plan around them.
3. Create Strong Data Privacy: Since data will be “up in the air” in a wireless network, make sure you have a strong data policy in place that includes two-factor authentication and encryption.
4. Follow Applicable Compliance Regulations: Do your research; each country, state and industry has specific regulations to follow.

IoT Needs Wireless Networking

Does your organization really need wireless networking? You do if you want to leverage the benefits of Internet of Things connected devices. As Aruba explains, “The possible IoT business use cases are endless. According to The Internet of Things 2015 report, 34 billion devices will be connected to the Internet by 2020, of which 24 billion will be IoT devices. The big surprise is that the largest adopter of IoT ecosystems will be businesses, not consumers. Businesses are projected to have 11.2 billion IoT devices installed by 2020.”

To make the transition of these devices smooth and easy, and transform your workplace into a modern digital environment, consider talking to an IT consulting company about setting up wireless networking today.

Stay tuned for more information on wireless networking, where we’ll dive deeper into some available solutions for your enterprise. In the meantime, get a free security and threat prevention assessment of your enterprise.