... of various aspects of your business activities, you usually pay little attention to the choice between Wi-Fi and LAN. Due to this negligence, you are missing an important piece of the puzzle. Below you can read more about challenges that you must face when building a state-of-the-art Wi-Fi 6/6E (802.11ax) network to support the digital transformation, their reasons and how you can cope with them.
The digital transformation...
... of various aspects of your business activities, you usually pay little attention to the choice between Wi-Fi and LAN. This is a negligence...
... as it has consequences for almost any types of business, although it may mean also different things such as Industry 4.0, flexible office, smart campus, telemedicine, or distance learning. All of them are based on artificial intelligence, data analysis (big data), and cybersecurity, and they often use cloud computing. These critical applications must be reliable but... it is not always the case.
Each application communicates with the world outside for instance to collect data from peripheral devices and sensors or to report the results to the human operator. Wireless connectivity technologies, such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, have been increasingly used. Users require radio communications that will provide them with the quality of a wired network. However... ‘the radio’ often proves to be less reliable. You must also take into account that a network built today should be able to meet ever-increasing expectations for many years to come but… in many cases the network has to be upgraded or even replaced already after 2 or 3 years.
What are the reasons...
... for these challenges? More importantly, how to face them?
In fact, there is a direct connection between the quality and efficiency of a service or application on the one hand, and the quality of the wireless network used on the other. Interrupted communications, dropping data rates, and other faults result in poor application performance and user dissatisfaction, and can even become barriers for any effective digital transformation. Wi-Fi 6 is a large step in the Wi-Fi networks evolution but it will not help resolve all the issues. There are actually many other challenges and needs in the real world, and RUCKUS solves and meets them all:
Innovative features
Wi-Fi networks require innovations to meet ever-increasing user expectations. New standards and functionalities emerge during the lifetime of a network. CommScope RUCKUS develops custom solutions for a number of industries, helping them to achieve and maintain the competitive edge on an on-going basis. This is evidenced by a unique set of certificates >> which we have been awarded as one of the first companies on the market.
IT team’s workload
As the world is going digital, IT teams have more work to do. In addition to application maintenance and security, they plan, implement, and maintain the network. They also have to make sure that the investment made today will efficiently work for many years to come and there will be no need to replace it or to undertake extensive repair activities. RUCKUS Analytics (RA) is an artificial intelligence-based tool that supports the IT team by proactively analyzing the network status and recommending best solutions. This improves network user satisfaction and reduces the workload of maintenance and help-desk teams. RA helps protect the current investment by extending its service life. Click here for details >>
Securely connecting new devices to a Wi-Fi network
As the number of devices is growing, it is more complex to manage their secure connection to the network. The BYOD (Bring your own device) approach can make it even more difficult. IT teams spend much valuable time changing passwords and managing related services but they all have limited time to do that. Using appropriate tools and automation is therefore key to improving the security while reducing the time needed to accomplish these tasks. Read more about it here >>
Fast LAN and efficient power supply
Each Wi-Fi network requires a good LAN to work with optimum performance. Wi-Fi 6 brings significantly higher data rates, so faster LAN connections are required. The current 1 Gbps connections are not sufficient, and to connect an AP you need so-called multi-Gig (2.5 Gbps and 5 Gbps) ports, and 10, 40, or even 100 Gbps ports in the backbone. The new capacities of the AP also require more power, and hence higher PoE budgets than those offered by LAN switches. Certainly, these switches should be managed together with the Wi-Fi network. All these requirements are met by RUCKUS ICX switch family. Read more about them here >>
Better support of legacy devices
When an existing network is upgraded, Wi-Fi devices that support legacy standards, such as 802.11g, 11n, or 11ac, should be taken into account. These devices should continue to operate and leverage the improvements offered by the new Wi-Fi network to increase the transmission data rate or quality. It is advisable to have a solution on the network that will support such legacy clients. This is what RUCKUS APs actually do >>
Simultaneous IoT support
In an era of the Internet of Things (IoT) and OT networks, modern solutions should support both broadband transmission for multimedia and high-volume data exchange as well as narrowband transmission from battery-powered devices (such as vibration or temperature sensors). While Wi-Fi serves the broadband applications well, BLE, ZigBee, or sometimes LoRa are better fit for the narrowband ones. RUCKUS network supports all these technologies, which makes it significantly easier to design, implement, and maintain an IT/OT network. Read more about the open architecture here >>
Radio frequency interference
The radio medium used in Wi-Fi is full of noise and interference increasing data transmission error rates, which makes it impossible to reach the required data rates or even results in loosing the connection. This problem can be remedied only with a device equipped with a radio module that can manage in the noisy environment. The solution is a RUCKUS access point (AP) supporting patented technologies such as BeamFlex+, PD-MRC, and SmartCast which provide higher levels of signal quality and data rates. The AP dynamically adapts to the changeable working environment by optimizing its characteristics on an on-going basis. A technical description of this unique mechanism is available here >>
Increasing number of devices and multimedia applications
The number of users and devices connected to the network is ever-increasing and will grow rapidly. Each Wi-Fi AP can serve a certain maximum number of devices at the same time (capacity). Making the Wi-Fi network denser by adding another AP is a bad idea as it can eventually lead to a drop in the network capacity! The only good solution to this problem is using an AP that provides sufficient capacity. Most AP providers employ a general-purpose architecture, while RUCKUS builds its APs using special-purpose components: separate radio modules, dedicated network modules, and a master control processor. Owing to this, an outstanding number of Wi-Fi sessions at the same time can be achieved as indicated by independent tests >>. Read more about the architecture here >>
To enable a true digital transformation of networks used by companies, public institutions, universities and other entities, you should use solutions designed for a demanding environment. CommScope RUCKUS offers such solutions. It is not without good reason that a lot of our customers recommend us in Gartner Peer Insight reviews. We encourage you to test and buy our solutions!
You might think it is OK, but organizations tend to look for savings in network investments by buying mid-range or even home solutions. This is due to the misbelief that a high-end Wi-Fi solution, such as RUCKUS, is expensive. At the same time, these organizations invest heavily in data centers, applications, and business laptops. In fact, the price of a decent RUCKUS AP is comparable to or lower than that of a good business laptop, while a single AP supports a few or up to one hundred laptops at the same time, operating for 7 or more years on the network, which is not the case with most IT equipment... Given the above, you must decide whether it is beneficial to accept a compromise concerning this important link in the chain of technological interdependencies that combine to provide a successful digital transformation.
It should be emphasized that an attempt to ignore the laws of physics and increase the network capacity by installing additional APs defeats the purpose and often has adverse effects: the data rate and the number of users served are d ropping, even to an unacceptable level.
This can be explained by comparing a spade and an excavator:
- Both these tools serve the same purpose which is to move the excavated material from point A to point B.
- It is certain that the excavator will do the same work faster and more efficiently than a man with a spade, even if the spade is made of gold and provided by a recognized manufacturer.
- You can have the work done by more workers with more spades but instead of improvement you will see chaos, as the ‘spade operators’ will interfere with each other. As a result, paradoxically, the productivity will drop.
- This is why a single excavator will be a better fit than dozens of spades.
Thus, the only way to improve the network capacity is to use a high-efficiency Wi-Fi.