Does 802.11n Spell the 'End of Ethernet'? 404
alphadogg writes "Is the advent of the 802.11n wireless standard the 'end of Ethernet'... at least in terms of client access to the LAN? That's the provocative title, and thesis, of a new report in which the author began looking into the question when he heard a growing number of clients asking whether it was time to discontinue wired LAN deployments for connecting clients. Would 11n, the next generation high-throughput Wi-Fi, make the RJ45 connector in the office wall as obsolete as gaslights?"
2.4GHz Hell (Score:2, Informative)
A 100MBPS wired network with a switch will outperform any wireless network for the foreseeable future.
Re:Gaslight? (Score:1, Informative)
a gas powered light.
before we had electricity alot of cities were piped with gas lines all over hell to run lighting. from the street pole lights to your home lights.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_lighting [wikipedia.org]
Theres still plenty of active gas lights around the world too. They don't burn out. (but might burn your house down) And they look kinda cool.
captcha - seared lol
Re:Um, no. (Score:5, Informative)
Shielded Twisted Pair will deal with this for you. It has been on the market for the past 2 or 3 decades. Maybe more.
Re:Um, no. (Score:5, Informative)
I do. Media servers. Although the theoretical data rate of 802.11n is high enough for several HD video streams, in practice you only get a third of the theoretical data rate reliably, making it barely adequate for 1-2 streams. Start actually moving those files around to store, say, on a laptop drive for watching later, and you'll really find wireless inadequate.
There are places in the world where that is not true today, where 100Mbps Internet connections are common. I expect we'll see that even in the US, as fiber-to-the-home initiatives are rolled out. There's one in my neck of the woods, called UTOPIA. Right now they're only providing 10Mbps (symmetric), but the plan is to ramp that up to 100Mbps in the future.
Re:Gaslight? (Score:1, Informative)
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_lighting [wikipedia.org] for a good writeup on the technology and photos of gaslight installations.
Re:wait (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Um, no. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Um, no. (Score:5, Informative)
they not only can require registration before turning on a port, but allow only one specific mac per port and either notify you, record all the data, and or shut off any port that is doing anything funy with mac addresses.
they also have a VLAN capacility that makes virtual switches connecting any ports in your whole building so noone but those on those specific ports can listen in.
and hacking a CISCO switch is no easy task.
Re:Um, no. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Um, no. (Score:5, Informative)
I dunno about that....at least in the Southeastern part of the US. Once you get past the locked doors, you run the risk of dogs and the inhabitants with their guns drawn and ready to fire.
Somehow I think sitting out in a car a distance away trying to hack the wireless is a little safer. It does and the very least, make the 'head shot' a little harder.
Re:No (Score:5, Informative)
Physical access is useless in a properly configured wired network. Have you ever heard of 802.1x? It's still considered a part of the best that wireless has to offer for security. Do you know what 802.1x was created for? Wired networks. If you properly configure 802.1x on a wired network, you not only need physical access, but you need to authenticate to be able to reach anything except the authentication server. You will get no broadcasts forwarded to your port for sniffing. You will not be able to send anything out of the network. You don't need encryption if you don't forward a single packet to that port other than the deny messages from the authentication server. Of course, you can encrypt over ethernet as well, but it isn't necessary with a properly configured network, even without physical security to the ports.
Wireless took Ethernet's leftovers and did the best they could, and it is still less than Ethernet. Equally secure networks *always* leave the wired network more secure. Anyone that thinks otherwise doesn't know how to configure a wired network.
Re:Um, no. (Score:3, Informative)
It's not just about ease of access, it's also about detection. It's very easy to break a window to get into a building, but it is also very easy to detect that type on intrusion. It may be more difficult to crack a WiFi connection, but it also not as obvious when someone is sniffing your packets.
And in any case any security comes down to the weakest link. If that link is physical access, when it comes to the point that I'm in your house standing in front of your computer, how is your security aided by using 802.11n over ethernet? (Other than one less wire for me to unplig before taking your system?)
It seems to me, wireless networking has all the security issues of ethernet and then some.
Re:UTP vs STP (sheilded twisted pair) (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Um, no. (Score:3, Informative)
Saying that someone could break in and steal the computers doesn't mean throwing any other thought of securing the network away. It could mean that you might be hacked by someone who would never break into anything or steal a physical object. I mean why even lock the house if they could break in anyways?
Your neighbor might never think of breaking into your house and stealing something from you. But he might not think twice about hacking into a wireless network that he can pick up from the safety of his own home. A lot of times, to the criminal, it is how likely they would get caught and how easy it would be to get away with it. How likely is it that you or I would be caught in the privacy of our own home with a wireless signal? How hard would it be compared to breaking into a house and stealing the computers?
Re:Um, no. (Score:3, Informative)
From the Wi-Fi Alliance's Draft 2.0 FAQ (PDF file) [wi-fi.org]:
In some configurations, 802.11n products can interfere with other Wi-Fi networks when they are trying to achieve the best performance. However, all products that are Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 802.11n draft 2.0 are required to implement a good neighbor protocol that helps ensure that interference is not a problem. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 802.11n draft 2.0 products will operate in a manner designed to cause the least interference.