Among sentiments rarely ever expressed, "Gosh, I just love configuring WiFi connections!" is probably one of the
least-used. It seems like you're always running up against average WiFi speed limitations and you can never get the signal strength you need even with the best wireless access point. It's always been annoying to configure.
As a matter of fact, even the name “WiFi” is kind of annoying. A lot of people believe it stands for “Wireless Fidelity,” in the same way that HiFi meant “High Fidelity” back in the day, but that's not the case. The truth is, the name was simply selected by a marketing agency looking for something catchy, something that disguises the hours that many would spend trying to get the stuff working at all.
Last Decade's Problems Dealing With Wireless Networking
Most of us, I think, have had a love-hate relationship with WiFi for most of the time we've known about it. It's a great idea in theory, and it's wonderful when it works... but historically, it's been a serious pain getting everything online and up to speed. I doubt any of us long for the “good old days” of having to manually configure every router and access point by hand.
Getting devices to connect can be even more of a hassle. Even if a user knows your password, if they use the wrong encryption scheme, they still get locked out. Different devices – laptops, tablets, smartphones, etc – all connect in slightly different ways, making it even more of a hassle for people to get everything online.
Plus, those old wireless access points were pretty insecure, too. Since they gave provisional access to the network while they authenticated the password, it could be relatively easy for hackers to break into your systems. Someone who knows what they're doing can still do quite a bit of damage in the “waiting room” while the password processes.
Of course, as the years went on, a lot of us also tended to expand our Wi-Fi networks ad-hoc, adding hardware as they grew. This created even more challenges, from removing bottlenecks in the system to trying to implement standardized security policies across all the devices.
The good news is, a decade down the line, there are now several new technologies in place that make Wi-Fi far less annoying than it's ever been!
New Advances In WiFi Networking
Now that Voice over IP (VoIP) has come along, and is steadily becoming a new standard among businesses, there's been real pressure on the networking companies to make their products more standardized and easier-to-use. Previously, these systems were made by Cisco and other high-end brands, but today, they're affordable for virtually any small or medium-sized business.
Bluesocket: Best Wireless Access Point
Bluesocket Adtran wireless access points, from ADTRAN, represents a real step forward in wireless networking. These wireless access points are entirely self-configuring – all you have to do is turn them on within range of your network. Further, they block all access until the password is authenticated, keeping people off your network entirely unless they have a good reason to be there.Virtualization:
Virtualization turns your old client\server network into something far more robust and distributed. A virtualized network makes use of unused processor time and drive space among your computers to speed up operations, wringing more performance out of every machine in your system.
Unified Communications
You can now centralize your business through unified communications with a single virtualized server that links every aspect of your network together. From laptops, to tablets, to offices around the world – it all can become part of a wide-area distributed network. You can have standardized security standards across the network, and manage all of it from a single console!
WiFi technology has taken some serious leaps forward in the past few years. If you have any questions about whether current technologies match your vision, just ask and we'll be happy to help!
