Network Communications News (NCN) April 2017 | Page 16

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The future of
enterprise wireless
As part of NCN’s special feature on wireless networks, Kevin Drinkall, Zyxel’s
technical consultant, looks at emerging trends in enterprise wireless.
The emerging trends in
enterprise wireless
It’s not news that tablets and
smar tphones are par t of our
everyday workplace. As the
number of mobile devices and
the deployment of cloud based
enterprise ser vices continue
to grow at a dramatic rate, the
infrastructure to suppor t this
growth within enterprises is
struggling to keep up with the trend.
Enterprise organisations on the
whole have had a steady uptake
in the adaptation of 802.11ac,
while industry verticals such as
hospitality have been much faster
in the uptake of the 802.11ac
standard. This is driven by the
need to serve greater numbers
16 | April 2017
of devices with media rich data
for cloud based applications like
Netflix and Amazon Prime. Those
in the hospitality industry, who
have made the quick change, have
done so to satisfy their clients’
needs. After all, how many of us
complain about Wi-Fi in hotels?
Even now, many enterprises
struggle to maintain a balance
between growth in number of
devices and reliable connectivity
services through wireless.
With the introduction of
802.11ac wave 2, boasting its
impressive high speeds, the use of
four spiral streams and the support
of multi-user MIMO has been hailed
by many vendors as the saviour to
enterprise. Many, however, neglect
to explain that despite the vast
improvements made in the 802.11ac
wave 2 standard, in a real world
deployment the massive leap in
performance is not as significant
as the one users witnessed in the
change from 802.11n to 802.11ac.
To realise the full benefits of
wave 2 it largely depends on your
user base. Without the right device
mix, the benefits will be marginal.
End user devices must support
MU-MIMO to take advantage of
the efficiencies in airtime that
essentially give the appearance
of faster connections. The range
on MU-MIMO is far less than
SU-MIMO deploym