 Deciding
to take your network wireless is a tough call. Here's a look
at some of the pros and cons.
You've determined that the merits of deploying Wi-Fi across
your enterprise outweigh the multitude of well-publicized issues
surrounding Wi-Fi. You've addressed the standard security concerns.
You've rationalized the alphabet soup of standards. You've quantified
the costs and qualified the benefits. You've even addressed
how you will manage the Wi-Fi networks once they're deployed.
 But
have you formulated a sufficiently compelling case to get approval
and funding? In the face of tough economic conditions, shrinking
IT budgets, and increasing pressures to do more with less, how
will your requests outweigh the merits of competing internal
requests for the same finite source of funding?
Corporate management tends to be leery of investing in any emerging
technology, especially if you cannot demonstrate hard benefits
and return on investment and rationalize why it is appropriate
to invest in the current state of that rapidly changing technology.
How will you prepare and present your case
for Wi-Fi investment?
Preparing Your Case for Management
If your case for Wi-Fi is pragmatic and based on the reality
of available technologies and near-term anticipated benefits,
you will miss an opportunity to address what is on the minds
of those who control your company's purse strings - namely,
what will happen a year from now when more cellular data and
Wi-Fi alternatives have arrived on the scene. In order to fully
prepare your case and address a longer-term strategy for Wi-Fi,
you will be well advised to address future wireless data scenarios
and lay out how you see these future scenarios potentially converging
with your near-term Wi-Fi scenario.
In doing so, you will need to address
the issues that management really wants to know about:
Why should I make this particular investment?
How will it impact the business?
Will it fundamentally transform how
we do business?
Why should the company fund your request
for Wi-Fi versus investing in new product development, hiring
more sales reps, upgrading or implementing a new business system,
or making any other investment requested by other business units?
How will this investment make the
company more competitive?
How specifically will it increase
revenues, decrease costs, and/or increase productivity?
Will the requested investment
generate an ROI, and if so, when?
If the ROI is more than 12 months
out, why are you even considering it?
How will you measure and prove
the ROI?
Should they expect to see you
back again in 12-18 months from now when cellular data or other
Wi-Fi advancements and alternatives have arrived on the scene?
If so, what happens to this investment
and how much additional funding will you be likely to request
then?
Can these costs be charged back
to the respective departments on a per-user basis, and if so,
what additional effort is needed to make this happen?
Have the business units
agreed to take on this additional cost?
Your goal should be to
make your request better prepared, more complete, and more compelling
than other investment cases being presented by other parts of
the business.
Where to Begin
To begin preparing your case for Wi-Fi,
address and rationalize your responses to the following areas
of assessment.
1. Wi-Fi Versus Wired LAN
If a wired LAN does not already exist where you would like to
deploy Wi-Fi, you can get a general sense of the cost benefits
resulting from Wi-Fi deployment by using the rule of thumb that
approximately 10 computing devices can be supported on a Wi-Fi
access point versus just one device on a hardwired connection.
If you assume that the approximate cost to install each cable
drop is $300 per hardwired connection, you would incur a cost
of $3,000 to hardwire 10 devices, as opposed to a cost of $300
to hardwire a single access point that supports 10 devices. Assuming
an additional cost of approximately $1,500 for the access point
including installation, this equates to a total cost of roughly
$1,800 or an approximate cost savings of $1,200 per every 10 devices
on the network. (Note: this is subject to how many devices a single
access point can effectively support, including factors such as
the density of devices within the area covered by a single access
point, whether access points are deployed to provide overlapping
coverage, and the like.)
In assessing the desire for Wi-Fi versus wired LAN, justify whether
deployment of Wi-Fi will significantly reduce the need for additional
hardwired cable runs, therefore presenting a cost benefit when
compared to traditional wired deployment. If you are in a scenario
where a wired LAN does not already exist, consider providing wired
connectivity to servers and other compute-intensive workstations
and computing devices, while using Wi-Fi to support "standard"
desktop use. If you are in a scenario where a wired LAN already
exists, look to provide Wi-Fi in areas where ad hoc teams form
and have a need to collaborate such as in conference rooms, break
rooms, cafeterias, and "war rooms" (temporary team environments
created to foster close collaboration on time-sensitive projects).
2. User Adoption
Is Wi-Fi something that will be easy to use, convenient, and desirable
for your end users? If the answer lies somewhere between "not
sure" and "no", it is unlikely that the introduction
of Wi-Fi will get a much-anticipated welcome, much less continued
use going forward. If there is pent-up demand, however, the chances
of wide user adoption is much greater.
In assessing the demand for Wi-Fi from the user community and
subsequently the likelihood of rousing user adoption, identify
the various user groups, justify how they will benefit from Wi-Fi,
determine whether they have business-critical or revenue-generating
functions that will be better supported by Wi-Fi, and understand
if these various groups of users are generally accepting of new
technologies and changes to the workplace. If you can build consensus
and anticipation for Wi-Fi among the user community, your chances
of a successful adoption will be increased.
3. Convergence of Wi-Fi and Cellular
Data
Assuming you have a need for real-time wireless connectivity,
what are the environments in which your various user groups need
connectivity? If wireless connectivity is predominantly needed
within the "four walls" of your business, Wi-Fi is the
leading consideration. However, if wireless connectivity is predominantly
needed beyond the walls of your business (i.e., for field service
personnel), then cellular data services such as GPRS or 1xRTT
data services provided by mobile operators should be your leading
consideration. Should you have user groups with a need for both
forms of wireless connectivity (i.e., Wi-Fi and cellular data),
you will then need to rationalize a wireless strategy that is
broader than Wi-Fi alone.
In assessing the need for
Wi-Fi versus cellular data services, determine when you are better
served by investing in the initial capital expense and ongoing
operational expense associated with Wi-Fi versus the recurring
monthly fees incurred from the use of cellular data services.
4. Convergence of Wi-Fi and Cellular
Voice
Will the investment in a Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWLAN) capability
drive down the usage and cost of cellular voice plans and/or will
it provide additional capabilities that will have a quantifiable
benefit within your business? If you have a relatively large employee
population that generates and receives a significant percentage
of their cellular calls within the "four walls" of your
business, VoWLAN should be a consideration. This should be an
even stronger consideration if you have either an existing VoIP
deployment or VoIP-enabled PBXs.
In assessing the viability of VoWLAN within your business, first
identify what percentage of cellular voice activity occurs within
the walls of your business and then assess the cost of implementing
and operating a Wi-Fi network that is capable of supporting a
VoWLAN capability. You can then assess the feasibility of this
investment versus "business as usual" with your existing
cellular service. In making this assessment, it is important to
note that VoWLAN will require a Wi-Fi infrastructure that supports
fast authentication in order to support seamless roaming both
between Wi-Fi access points and in the handoff between cellular
and Wi-Fi networks. A VoWLAN standard, however, is not expected
until later this year.
5. Alphabet Soup
It is essential to know the meanings of current Wi-Fi standards
such as 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11a, 802.11i, and the like in terms
of their present and future roles within your business. It is
also advisable that you have an awareness of future standards
that have yet to be ratified and brought to market, such as 802.11e
for quality of service (QoS) and the yet-to-be-designated standard
for VoWLAN.
In assessing the alphabet soup of Wi-Fi standards, if you don't
already have access to the necessary experts, you must be prepared
to seek expert assistance to help you wade through the various
competing standards and technologies and rationalize that which
is best suited to your requirements.
6. Technology Approach
There are two prevailing considerations for technology selection.
The first is whether you plan for a heterogeneous or homogeneous
environment of vendor technologies. The second is whether you
plan for enterprise-grade or lesser-grade technology.
Identify whether you will
be opting for technology that is standards-based, thereby allowing
you to "mix and match" technologies that are based on
the same standards (heterogeneous approach) or if you will be
relying on a single vendor's technology in order to take advantage
of their advanced proprietary capabilities (homogeneous approach).
Will you rely on full-featured enterprise technology that comes
with all the bells and whistles that make it practical to centrally
monitor and manage this equipment? Or, will you rely on fewer-featured
technology that may potentially make deployment or management
more difficult?
7. Security
Security continues to be the black cloud hanging over Wi-Fi. How
will you convince management that, in addition to the creation
and enforcement of underlying policies, you have addressed all
aspects of security, including those associated with the technology,
the physical security of the premises and equipment, and the tools
and methods to ensure the continued security of the Wi-Fi deployments
in addition to the creation and enforcement of underlying policies?
Establish guidelines for
what you believe to be a reasonable level of security for your
instance, how you will achieve that level of security, and the
benefits and risks of the approach you are taking. In short, you
must be able to dissuade concerns of undue risk to the business
while demonstrating the merit of your proposal to address the
holistic requirements around security, both in the initial Wi-Fi
deployments and as an ongoing process. Within this assessment
you must also be prepared to identify if/how you will monitor
for unauthorized Wi-Fi technology (i.e., rogue access points).
8. Bluetooth
What relevance does Bluetooth have when considering the deployment
of Wi-Fi? Bluetooth is a personal area network (versus a local
area network) that has been largely used to date as a point-to-point
interconnect method between Bluetooth-enabled devices such as
cellular handsets, PDAs, and printers. You need to be able to
sufficiently differentiate it from Wi-Fi.
9. WiMAX
What relevance does WiMAX (802.16) have when considering the deployment
of Wi-Fi? Recognizing that WiMAX will be a backhaul solution or
a so-called "last mile" technology for the foreseeable
future, it will complement rather than compete with Wi-Fi.
10. Centralized Management
How do you manage your WAN and LAN environments today? Do you
have centralized or distributed management? Identify how you will
monitor and manage your Wi-Fi infrastructure, including what additional
investments are required in tools and training or third-party
services and if/how you can leverage your existing network support
capabilities. Due to the need to have tighter control of your
Wi-Fi deployments, it will be advisable to have a centralized
Wi-Fi management capability.
11. Total Cost of Ownership
Do you have a grasp on what the total cost of ownership (TCO)
is for a single Wi-Fi deployment? A national Wi-Fi rollout? A
global rollout? Address all aspects of TCO, including the costs
required to establish policies and procedures, a baseline architecture,
technical standards, site surveys, purchasing, integration and
configuration, shipping and logistics, installation, validation,
site-specific installation documentation, operations procedures,
site monitoring and management, support, and project management.
12. Change Management
Have you considered or perhaps already developed those policies
that will be required to determine which users across your business
will be allowed to use Wi-Fi? What are the minimum standards for
hardware, OS, and the Wi-Fi client card? If upgrades are required,
how will this be achieved and at whose expense? How will users
be trained? Identify how the Wi-Fi user community will be properly
equipped, prepared, and engaged in using the new Wi-Fi capabilities.
13. Basis for Your Business Case
Are you basing your business case for Wi-Fi on increasing revenue,
decreasing cost, or increasing productivity? Be sure to clearly
identify the basis for the investment. If you are building a business
case for Wi-Fi within an office environment where the benefits
are based on soft productivity increases that may not be sufficiently
compelling in their own right, consider associating Wi-Fi with
facilities improvement, where Wi-Fi is proposed as a means to
improve the work environment.
Peace, Love, and Wi-Fi
While few will question the merits of Wi-Fi, those who authorize
the funding for it will certainly feel compelled to question the
ROI aspects of your business case, especially if there is any
hint of soft benefits included in the justification. Your course
of action will be to first recognize that you are in fact competing
for a finite amount of internal funding. Then set out to make
your case for Wi-Fi more compelling than requests to upgrade desktops,
introduce a new operating system, or roll in a new copy machine
that will alert the service organization via your Wi-Fi network
when it is running low on toner.
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