Is wireless a true desktop replacement for fixed cabling?

When you’ve suffered a few wi-fi drop outs and waited ages for your downloads to materialise over an agonisingly slow connection, it can make you yearn for the speed and security of cable. 

The importance of wi-fi is increasingly recognised especially as modern consumer IT devices simply don’t have physical network ports. Blackberry, iPad and smaller laptops are designed to be highly mobile. 

These devices are typically used out in the field. Indeed, the nature of, say, social networks, email or SMS make them suited to wi-fi as the amount of data being transmitted is small, and the odd break in transmission does not impact on productivity.

Wi-fi tends to be unsuitable for heavier duty projects that involves computer aided design (CAD) that need both processing power and network connectivity to store, share and process data. Even a modern 802.11n network is relatively slow compared to 100mb or gigabit speed cabled Ethernet network. 

Streaming video is another area where wi-fi is problematic as, without perfect harmonisation between the viewer and the sender, the delay can impact on the user experience, This applies to time sensitive applications, like VoIP, are equally likely to find wi-fi a challenging environment as wi-fi is subject to variation. Wi-fi networks also have black spots, where the signal doesn’t carry and are also more prone to security issues.

Newer generations of wi-fi have tackled this weakness, with a variety of approaches from different vendors. Ruckus for example invented a beam forming technology to overcome interference by steering signals around the obstacles that might block transmission. Other vendors have invented their own proprietary versions of the wi-fi network, such as the creation of a single cell network, so that user’s wi-fi conections don’t drop as they roam across the different cells that make up a network.

Cabled networks don’t have these sorts of challenges.

Modern cabled leads are generally faster and more reliable while their insulating layer of plastic stops interference and makes in transit interception less likely.

While many of the wi-fi manufacturers are striving to solve the inconsistencies of their wireless broadcasts, cabled networks are able to produce the quality of service now.

Cabled networks are the standard to which the wi-fi makers want to aspire. Surely that would suggest that cable offers a better service.

Imagine if cable had only just been invented and it was being marketed furiously as the Next Big Thing. 

If cable was the new must have fashionable alternative to boring old fuddy duddy dinosaur technology wi-fi (wi-fi? ha! My dad still uses that) let’s try to imagine what the chattering classes might say about it.

Tame analysts would be invited into the Gadget Show and BBC Breakfast and asked to explain what on earth this new cable thing is that all the kids are going crazy for.

Well, the analysts would explain, there are hundreds of benefits, but the main ones are superior quality of service, faster throughput,  resistance to interference, consistency and standards of security.

“Whoa!” the TV presenter would say, “you’re confusing me now with these technical terms. Can you explain what this means for the man on the Clapham Omnibus?”

Well, the great advantage for the man on the Clapham Omnibus is that, if he used cable, he wouldn’t be able to get an internet connection while travelling on the bus, the analyst might tell the TV host. “That sounds incredibly liberating,” the host would say, “it means I could have some quiet thinking time without being bombarded with constant data.”

But it gets better than that, the analyst would explain. Once you are inside your office, and you ‘cable up’ your laptop, the benefits when you go online are amazing.

You know all those ‘drop outs’ you get with wi-fi? Doesn’t happen with cable. It’s got a special plastic coating that protects you from interference and the cable itself ensures you get a consistent connection. And here’s the real killer application – the speed of internet connection can be much faster!

“I understand Stephen Fry has already raved about this new coaxial cable in his blog,” the host would add, giving this new fangled cable invention the celebrity validation it needed. Cables To Go (www.cablestogo.co.uk) are now a household name, he would say, even I know they are the market leader.

Yes, that’s right, the analyst would say. “But you don’t have to buy top of the range coaxial cable. There are other options, such as twisted pair.” These funky technical terms will be part of the national lexicon soon, the TV host would conclude. I’m sure my daughter knows what they mean.
 
So, could cable kill off wi-fi? No, hang on, it’s the other way around. Will wi-fi kill cable?

Of course not. They will happily co-exist, as each has its own merits. Naturally, as more powerful mobile devices are used for work they will need access to faster mobile networks (be they wifi or 3G or LTE).

At the same time, the need to access high capacity fixed networks for data intensive, low latency tasks is unlikely to ever vanish.