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Many companies are discovering cost-saving and productivity benefits with Wireless LANs (WLANs).
WLAN technology gives employees the freedom to work anywhere — including campus meeting rooms, home offices, airports and hotels — while maintaining secure, fast and reliable access to information resources, critical applications and communications tools.
This flexibility increases employees' productivity and, according to reports (NOP World — Technology, Fall 2001), companies enjoy an even faster return on their investment on WLAN deployment than expected.
Thus as companies move towards a mobile workforce, Network Managers need to look at how they can effectively deploy and integrate wireless access into their wired network without a major network overhaul.
Factors Driving the Trend:
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Demand for Workforce Mobility
According to industry studies, professionals are at their desks for just 30 percent of the business day. To keep up with ever-increasing workloads these professionals often try to make use of small pockets of free time in between meetings or while in transit. Mobility solutions such as WLAN and IP Communication maximise their productivity at these times, by providing flexible and reliable access to critical applications, content and communications tools.
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Enhanced Productivity Gains
According to NOP World (Technology, Fall 2001), WLANs can increase productivity by up to 22% because each employee stays connected to the network longer, works with greater accuracy and enjoys enhanced job satisfaction. All of these contribute to improving a company's bottom line.
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Faster Return on Investment
With a reported average salary for a professional worker of US$64,000, a 22% increase in annual productivity is worth $7000 per user. For the average large corporation, this equates to as much as $6.3 million each year.
However, the cost of installing a wireless access-point infrastructure and laptop connections can cost as little as US$1-2 per person per day. For about the price of a cup of coffee, users can have wireless access to their company's highly tuned, valuable corporate networks, and contribute more than US$19 extra per day in productivity.
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Enhanced Security
Network security is of tremendous concern to any organisation, especially if information is traversing a wireless connection or the public Internet. Technology is now available to protect all types of networks with enhanced security features, such as stronger user and network authentication and more complex encryption.
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The Solution:
Wired for Wireless Mobility
With a strong wired networking heritage and wireless technology leadership, Cisco Systems is in a unique position to deliver true wired and wireless network integration.
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Inline Power and its Benefits
Cisco Catalyst Switches and Aironet Access Points provide an end-to-end, inline-power WLAN solution in one package.
Cisco Aironet 1100 & 1200 Series access points are IEEE 802.11b-compliant and Wi-Fi-certified by the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance (WECA) for interoperability. One of their key benefits is that they can be powered through their Ethernet cables, with either a Cisco-powered switch or a small inline power injector. Therefore Cisco Aironet Access Points can be installed with just one Category 5 copper cable. It is unnecessary to install electrical power outlets, making access points easier and more economical to deploy.
Cisco Catalyst 4503, 4506, and 4507R switches support the 48-port 10/100BASE-T (RJ45) inline power Ethernet line card to deliver 48V DC power directly through the Ethernet wire to power IP phones and wireless access points.
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Security and QoS
Intelligent network services help to ensure security and QoS are maintained, even when expanding connectivity beyond the confines of a wired network.
Cisco Catalyst switches provide intelligence from the core to the edge of a network. Access Control Lists (ACLs) protect networks from internal and external threats by authenticating users, restricting access, and isolating traffic en route to its destination. Cisco Cluster Management Suite (CMS) software, embedded in the fixed port and Catalyst 4500 series of switches, provides wizards, configuration templates, and other tools to simplify and streamline the otherwise time-consuming tasks of deploying intelligent services.
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Extending QoS and Security
Cisco Aironet Series Access Points are capable of managing up to 16 VLANs, allowing customers to differentiate LAN policies and services, such as security and QoS, for different users. For example, enterprise customers can use different VLANs to segregate employee traffic from guest traffic, and further segregate those traffic groups from high-priority voice traffic. Traffic to and from wireless clients with varying security capabilities can be segregated into VLANs with varying security policies. This enables educational institutions, for example, to secure faculty and administrator traffic from student access by students using the same infrastructure.
With support for 802.1p QoS, the Cisco Aironet Access Point provides end-to-end prioritisation for packets travelling to and from the access point over Ethernet. Delay-sensitive traffic, such as voice and video, can be prioritised over data traffic for improved user experience and optimal network utilisation. Software and radio firmware upgrades provide the capability to upgrade to future QoS standards such as 802.11e. Supporting voice prioritisation schemes for 802.11b mobile phones, the Aironet 1100 Series further enables quality voice-over-wireless-LAN solutions.
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Latest from Cisco Newsroom
Cisco Advances Integration of Wired and Wireless LANs
Cisco recently introduced a framework for a single, secure integrated wired and wireless network. This Structured Wireless-Aware Network provides the security, scalability, and reliability customers depend on to enable core business applications. The framework has the ability to detect rogue access points, a common management and security scheme, and offers simplified deployment and operation, centralised control and configuration of thousands of networking devices, fast and secure roaming for mobile applications and self-healing networks for improved wireless up-time.
These enhancements will be integrated in Cisco Aironet 1100 and 1200 Series Access Points (APs), Cisco Catalyst 3750, 4500 and 6500 Series Switches and Cisco 2600XM and 3700 Series Routers. Other components of the solution include CiscoWorks Wireless LAN Solution Engine (WLSE) for management and monitoring, Cisco Secure Access Control Server for centralised authentication and Cisco and Cisco-Compatible client adapters for Radio Frequency (RF) monitoring and measurement.
Read the Press Release
For more information:
Learn more about Cisco Wireless LAN solutions.
Read more about Cisco Catalyst switches that support WLAN, including the Catalyst 4500.
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