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We're about to move ~800 people into a new office and we're going Wi-Fi only when we do. Several reasons: - Cost avoidance. Hard wiring a new fitout is expensi

We're about to move ~800 people into a new office and we're going Wi-Fi only when we do. Several reasons: - Cost avoidance. Hard wiring a new fitout is expensive, and in our case costs $200k for the structured cabling alone (ignoring the switch port cost, and the fact that we'd be deploying Wi-Fi anyway for roaming) - Better roaming experience. USB3 docking made the desk experience better for staff but USBC has made it worse again, to the point that we get all kinds of random crap happening when roving from wired to wireless. This could (and will eventually be) fixed with some attention, but when we were considering Wi-Fi only for the office, mitigating this issue was a nice bonus. - Reduced end-user network requirements. With most end-user applications being moved behind a web interface, the trend is for far lower fat-client throughput requirements. I don't see that changing any time soon despite the additional bloat being introduced to a lot of web front-ends. There are still special cases that do have high throughput requirements (raw media work, mostly) but it's a fraction of the user base. - ROI on existing wireless infrastructure. We have significant investment in a proven enterprise wireless infrastructure (Aruba) that we can extract far more value out of by bumping up access point density and attaching all clients onto. - Competing nonsense avoidance. In my sector, fibre to the desk is the current load of bollocks that we're being railroaded into adopting. I've side-stepped that whole debacle by shifting us entirely across to something we had to deploy anyway - Wireless. - It fits a theme. We're doing wireless stuff in a ton of other places at the same time: Wireless bluetooth headsets for telephony. Wireless screen casting (Miracast, Airplay and Chromecast) for meeting presentation. Wireless bluetooth conference phones for audio conferencing. If I could nail some kind of bluetooth webcam for vid conferencing, I probably would push for that that too. - We have the underlying capabilities to effectively support wireless-only, such as dedicated network staff with appropriate skills (Wi-Fi is it's own specialist subject aside from conventional networking) and the right investigative/monitoring tools (in our case, Spectrum analysis, heatmapping, air monitoring and such all come out of the Aruba mobility controller/Airwave systems we already operate. There are risks to doing this, and you want to run a solid proof-of-concept ahead of committing your organisation to it. But that's achievable, and there's no reasons a sufficiently mature organisation that's trying to work more flexibly can't treat wireless as a first-class connectivity option.

zamadatix 8y ago
As a fellow large Aruba user I'd recommend extreme caution with how much you're pushing the BT stuff for telecommunications in a high density wireless environment. We've had that bite us in the ass a few times already. A lot of stuff doesn't mind running slower but telecommunication/video hates jitter, loss, and delay far more than anything else and you're putting it on the lowest end wireless infrastructure you have.
- FooHentai 8y ago
  Yeah all of this coincides with moving people across to soft phones and headsets. Most users are heading to wired headsets which will keep a lot of Bluetooth out of the airspace, but a few will have BT headsets (and many have just obtained their own). The other big gotcha with wireless is catering adequately for guest devices. In more permissive environments (such as ours), catering for 3 devices per staff member is a good starting point. You also have to decide how/if you want to prioritize corporate over guest traffic, and that's not as straightforward as it first looks. We're fortunate that our user base (800) is spread over a significant floor area, and four separate large floors. We're also pretty much alone in our space, so less outside interference to handle. It was far worse at my last organisation (also Aruba), where not only were we surrounded by very noisy neighbours but we also had far higher floor density, coupled with the navy docking right next to the building which would regularly wipe out our wireless, site-wide, for random amounts of time.

zamadatix 8y ago

As a fellow large Aruba user I'd recommend extreme caution with how much you're pushing the BT stuff for telecommunications in a high density wireless environment. We've had that bite us in the ass a few times already. A lot of stuff doesn't mind running slower but telecommunication/video hates jitter, loss, and delay far more than anything else and you're putting it on the lowest end wireless infrastructure you have.

FooHentai 8y ago
Yeah all of this coincides with moving people across to soft phones and headsets. Most users are heading to wired headsets which will keep a lot of Bluetooth out of the airspace, but a few will have BT headsets (and many have just obtained their own). The other big gotcha with wireless is catering adequately for guest devices. In more permissive environments (such as ours), catering for 3 devices per staff member is a good starting point. You also have to decide how/if you want to prioritize corporate over guest traffic, and that's not as straightforward as it first looks. We're fortunate that our user base (800) is spread over a significant floor area, and four separate large floors. We're also pretty much alone in our space, so less outside interference to handle. It was far worse at my last organisation (also Aruba), where not only were we surrounded by very noisy neighbours but we also had far higher floor density, coupled with the navy docking right next to the building which would regularly wipe out our wireless, site-wide, for random amounts of time.