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I worked for two types of companies that take the opposing strategies for networking: Your company had ethernet drops and workstations (laptops with docking sta

I worked for two types of companies that take the opposing strategies for networking: Your company had ethernet drops and workstations (laptops with docking stations count), or they used Macbooks connected via wifi. The latter I've found more frequently, but not exclusively, in startups. If I were to venture a guess, it's probably cost. It's expensive to physically network an office between the hardware, physically wiring up the place, and all the technical people needed to do that work. It made sense a while ago when wifi was slow, laptops were not as capable (cost/performance/storage/etc) compared to their workstation counterparts, the cloud had yet to replace on-prem equipment, and every other business was doing the same thing. By the early 2010s those problems have largely disappeared, but the sunk costs exist for many companies.

JohnFen 3y ago
It's not always about sunk costs. The offices where I work right now were built just a few years ago, and everything is wired. In this case, it's because we deal with large amounts of data and WiFi would be too slow, not to mention that WiFi brings additional security issues that wired doesn't. But everywhere I worked, people have always preferred using wired connections over WiFi, because the performance is better and it's much more reliable. Regardless of the reason, I just marveled because I have never been exposed to a Wifi-only work network and it didn't occur to me that anyone would do that.
b7we5b7a 3y ago
Agree, it's not just direct cost of the material. I work in a small software shop (~10 people), and besides me there's only one other guy that could take up the task of running wires all over the office, the others are developers, not sysadmins. We don't have >3k$ "business" desks, we have Ikea desks. Our office is essentially an apartment converted to office. It does have ethernet wall sockets in each room, but it's only 2 per room. We've been talking about wiring the office properly for years, but: - we'd have to run wires on the ground from the wall sockets and protect them properly, otherwise creating potential safety hazards (people tripping, water, ...) - we'd have to add a switch per room, to place somewhere, but the only available places are the cable-holding Ikea desks (not exactly reliable) - we'd have to run and hold cable on each desk, for.... people that mostly use Macbooks, most of which only have USB-C ports; we'd have to buy expensive docks just to fix the ethernet cable in place, when all our screens have power-delivery over USB-C already and everyone has wireless keyboard/mouse To us the investment is simply not worth the effort, not just in money, but also in time spent implementing it and maintaining it. It's simply not a priority, we have applications to deliver. I did work in banks and big corps, and there I always had wired desktops with wifi being reserved for guests (with certs generated by the host ofc). I can totally see small/medium-sized companies growing organically over the years and not getting this addressed as a top priority, as you said wifi is fast enough nowadays.

JohnFen 3y ago

It's not always about sunk costs. The offices where I work right now were built just a few years ago, and everything is wired. In this case, it's because we deal with large amounts of data and WiFi would be too slow, not to mention that WiFi brings additional security issues that wired doesn't. But everywhere I worked, people have always preferred using wired connections over WiFi, because the performance is better and it's much more reliable. Regardless of the reason, I just marveled because I have never been exposed to a Wifi-only work network and it didn't occur to me that anyone would do that.

b7we5b7a 3y ago

Agree, it's not just direct cost of the material. I work in a small software shop (~10 people), and besides me there's only one other guy that could take up the task of running wires all over the office, the others are developers, not sysadmins. We don't have >3k$ "business" desks, we have Ikea desks. Our office is essentially an apartment converted to office. It does have ethernet wall sockets in each room, but it's only 2 per room. We've been talking about wiring the office properly for years, but: - we'd have to run wires on the ground from the wall sockets and protect them properly, otherwise creating potential safety hazards (people tripping, water, ...) - we'd have to add a switch per room, to place somewhere, but the only available places are the cable-holding Ikea desks (not exactly reliable) - we'd have to run and hold cable on each desk, for.... people that mostly use Macbooks, most of which only have USB-C ports; we'd have to buy expensive docks just to fix the ethernet cable in place, when all our screens have power-delivery over USB-C already and everyone has wireless keyboard/mouse To us the investment is simply not worth the effort, not just in money, but also in time spent implementing it and maintaining it. It's simply not a priority, we have applications to deliver. I did work in banks and big corps, and there I always had wired desktops with wifi being reserved for guests (with certs generated by the host ofc). I can totally see small/medium-sized companies growing organically over the years and not getting this addressed as a top priority, as you said wifi is fast enough nowadays.