WLAN deployments: Let's get dense

Remember the days when long-distance rates dropped at 5 p.m.? I used to plan my day around that, delaying those lengthy calls to California. Times change, of course, but old habits take a little longer. I'll bet a lot of people still wait until 5 to pick up the phone. And an astonishing number of folks still lease their phones from AT&T!

Likewise, a scarcity mentality still prevails among wireless-LAN installers, who are planning for coverage when they should be planning for capacity. With network requirements for throughput, number of users and time-bounded services only growing over time, more thought needs to be devoted, up front, to what the WLAN will need to look like in the not-too-distant future. The whole concept of optimization for coverage-and the sparse deployments that result-is going to lead to user frustration and network manager irritation if the situation doesn't change soon.

That's why the recent announcements from Aruba and Ortronics are so interesting and are likely to represent the start of an important new trend in WLAN deployments. What these guys do is put access points (APs) in the wall or on the desktop, instead of in the ceiling, and use existing Ethernet cabling rather than running new wire to each AP.

With AP prices continuing to fall, it makes sense to deploy more of them. And with cabling installation costs continuing to rise, it also makes sense to minimize custom cabling to the greatest degree possible. We call the whole idea "dense deployments," and that's just what it is. More APs equals more capacity-and that's precisely what we need.

Oh, sure, there are issues. Densely packed APs with "mostly water" objects moving in front of them are going to embody somewhat more involved WLAN management challenges.

But the RF spectrum management tools to deal with the situation are already deployed in many cases and are otherwise readily available.

There will be discussions of the need for improved handoff performance (already under way at 802.11 and, regardless, featured by some vendors today) and how the enhanced coverage of 802.11n might mitigate the demand for the dense deployment model. But I think that all of these pieces really together fit quite nicely, and dense is a buzzword we'll be hearing a lot more often.

Times change, and it pays to change with them.