Sadly, I think Wifi is one of the most oversold protocols. It is simply not robust enough for good work. Case in point, I have gone through two Wifi routers of good quality just to get a consistent signal from my living room through a single wall to my bedroom in my apartment. One issue is that because there are so many people now with Wifi and cable modem hubs, the signals bang against each other sometimes up and down all day. I've already done the fix of specifying a channel that I believe will not be chosen by my neighbors autoscan, but there are times during the day where it just stops working or slows down incredibly.
Luckily I also have a Wimax modem and sometimes I plug that in directly to my laptop at home, circumventing the Wifi connection to the master Wimax modem.
Wifi would have been much better if the distance and the signal strength could be increased.
Part of the issue is regulatory. WiFi is available to anyone willing to put the hardware together because it uses unlicensed frequency bands. The bands are open, but there are power limitations. Go beyond that power level, and then you have to license the frequency. Actually, I think it requires a license *and* a move to a licensed frequency.
I agree that seven is, actually, probably an understatement if you eliminate the word "carry" from the sentence. At first I thought seven sounded like a high number, but when you consider the qualms people are having about BYOD, you can easily see many professionals toting duplicate devices: Two tablets (home and office); two cell phones; one notebook; one Roku, and one iPod. There, that's seven without having to come up with any new device! And as you say, Tam, there are already wireless refrigerators and other home products on the market. No doubt, they'll soon be more mainstream - and bandwidth-hogging!
As to the number of WiFi devices, I now use three on a regular basis, often simultaneously. As one commenter noted, WiFi is going into EVERYTHING, so if you think about WiFi-enabled devices (TVs, refrigerators, stereo speakers, reading devices, etc) I don't think seven is too much of a stretch.
Mitch, I second you, and even if there are 3 different devices for everyone, who would use them simultaneously? Are there that kind of people, holding Ipad in one hand, while checking email,using Iphone?
Seven devices seems to be a stretch, but then who can really predict the future with any accuracy anyway? Maybe we'll all be down to an all-in-one device. No doubt that improved bandwidth and speeds will be needed for wifi, even if there's a bit of hype by manufacturers to get the word out.
Hi Tam, thanks for an interesting article. I spend most of my research time on WLAN and Wi-Fi in particular, so I can also confirm that these issues are brewing problems for enterprises. But of course there are always good engineering solutions, as long as someone is prepared to listen and pay for them!
Regarding 7 devices per person, indeed it sounds extreme with today's standards, but not so much if we are look a bit into the future. Machine-to-machine (M2M) and Internet-of-Things (IoT) are cool buzzwords today, however they are turning into reality gradually. Instead of thinking about 7 devices (laptops, tablets etc) , things of 7 internet-enabled items. That could include your shoes, your watch (if they still exist), your clothes (yes!), and to take a bit into Sci-Fi, that electronic pill you had in the morning (yes , these also exist today).
Wifi would have been much better if the distance and the signal strength could be increased. As you said Alison some Wifi Routers have the problem when multiply devices connect simultaneously. Yet I haven't seen this problem on the Cisco Wireless router that we use at office, yet it's quite expensive and not worth having one at home unless you're really looking at a smooth network with multiple simultaneous access.
I'm having trouble determining what seven devices an average consumer will carry, Mitch. A personal *and* a work version of a portable PC (whatever form that may take), a tablet, and a smartphone, that's only six. EDIT TO ADD: And with processing power growing, I think there's going to be some level of convergence.
That said, I'm at three right now. But only because I'm paranoid. A phone and a laptop, then a personal netbook on which I do all my personal work. I don't even attach that netbook to the corporate WLAN.
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