Tag Archives: wireless

Best Practices for Setting Up Your New Office for Success: Wired or Wireless?

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Business professional holding a tablet device while speaking with an IT professional about setting up his new office space.

Weighing the pros and cons of setting up your office space.

Setting up your new physical office can be an exciting time. Surveying your space and imagining the quality work that’s going to get done there fires up the imagination like nothing else. With lots of options and decisions to make, however, the job of planning your new office can quickly pivot from exciting to stressful. One of the underlying questions you’ll have to bear in mind before you get started is whether you want to set up your new office space on a wired or wireless model.

Wired or Wireless Model? Pros and Cons

When planning your set-up, before you get in the weeds with lighting, office furniture, and décor, you’ll want to decide if your new office will be wired or wireless.

Wired Offices

Though wireless technology creates lots of flexibility, wired offices still carry some distinct advantages:

  • Wired internet may prove faster than wireless
  • Wired networks typically have stronger security options
  • Wired set-ups are often less expensive than wireless ones

Of course, in a completely wired office, laptop and tablet users will be out of luck in freedom moving about the office.

Wireless Offices

Just like wired office set-ups, totally wireless offices come with their own benefits:

  • Wireless connections increase mobility
  • Wireless systems are quicker and easier to install, since there’s no fiddling with connections and cables
  • Wireless networks typically present a neater and tidier appearance
  • Wireless networks allow for the latest in technology (including laptops and tablets)

Despite all these advantages, an exclusively wireless office isn’t always the best choice.

Benefits of Hybrid Deployment

Back in 2012, experts over at Inc. predicted that “the future of your office is wireless” and that some time in the near distant future, all office would be exclusively wireless.

This wire-free future will be the result of several technologies that exist or are in development, including one called WiGig, a multigigabit wireless docking technology capable of speeds of up to 7Gbps that runs on spectrum in the unlicensed 60 GHz frequency band. These frequencies are great for short-range communications and require line of sight between devices. That means it doesn’t work well between rooms. (Inc.com)

In a way, reading that description is a bit like time traveling.

While the technologies being described above have come and even been surpassed by more powerful and innovative replacements, we still haven’t seen a hard pivot to totally wireless offices.

While there are exceptions, most offices today deploy a hybrid approach to networking and internet access, and there are distinct reasons why this works best.

Naturally, if you choose an exclusively wireless office, you’ll lose all the advantages that come with wired connections; and if you choose to set up an exclusively wired office, the reverse is also true.

By deploying a hybrid set-up, including both wired and wireless connections, however, you’ll allow for the best of both worlds.

  • Security and mobility
  • Speed and aesthetics
  • Affordability and dependability

If you’re looking for current best practices for setting up your new office for success this year, rather than debating between wired and wireless connectivity, you would do best to lean more toward an inclusive hybrid model.

Of course, with a hybrid model, you’ll want to pay special attention to your network security.

That’s where we come in.

SystemsNet Can Help

At SystemsNet, we offer affordable plans to protect you from cybersecurity threats. If you’re interested in adding or tightening security for your business but aren’t sure where to start, we offer free consultations to get you on the right track.

For more information on our premium services, or to discuss setting your new office up for success, please contact us today. We look forward to serving you!

Wireless vs Cat-6: Which Should You Choose for Your Business?

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Choosing the right internet type for your business requires considering a number of factors, and you may find that a combination of different methods is best.

When configuring your IT set-up, and when planning the organization of your office more generally, one of the decisions you’ll repeatedly run up against is whether to go “wired” (with cables) or “wireless” (Wi-Fi).

Keep in mind that you don’t have to choose one at the complete expense of the other. Many businesses combine the two.

Wireless vs Cat-6: How Do They Compare?

Various factors will influence the extent to which you rely on a wireless set-up vs. the use of cables (Cat-6 is short for Category 6, a high-quality cable that provides notable improvements in performance compared to Cat5e, which is also frequently used).

The devices and applications you regularly depend on will play an important role in these decisions. Let’s look at how wireless generally compares to Cat-6 cables across different dimensions.

Convenience

Setting up Wi-Fi in your work environment gives your employees, business partners, and customers greater convenience when they use laptops, Smartphones, or tablets on your premises. Although businesses have legitimate concerns about a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) approach, it has become fairly common, often contributing to productivity and giving employees greater flexibility for how to get their work done.

This, however, doesn’t mean that cables no longer have a purpose. Cables remain a strong option for desktop computers and other devices that remain at one location. And while they’re often not as convenient as Wi-Fi, they offer other benefits.

Security

Although Ethernet cables aren’t entirely free of security risks (for example, cyber criminals can try to tap into a cable), they transmit data more securely than wireless signals. With Wi-Fi, data gets transmitted in the form of radio waves between a computing device and a router; if the Wi-Fi remains open, anyone can intercept the data and listen in, even without any physical connection to your network.

However, there are a number of ways to improve Wi-Fi security. For example, businesses can use high standards of encryption and lengthy, complex passwords to better protect their Wi-Fi transmissions. Even if cables enjoy an edge in cyber security, you don’t have to give up on Wi-Fi.

Speed and Latency

Cables have the capability to transmit data faster and with less latency or delay than Wi-Fi networks. For many day-to-day business activities, these differences between cables and Wi-Fi aren’t relevant or noticeable to end-users. You may, however, perceive differences under some circumstances – such as when you need to transmit large amounts of data, including huge files. With some applications, you’ll favor the greater speed and reliability of a Cat6 cable.

Interference

Wi-Fi signals are more vulnerable to interference. Distance from the router, the activities from multiple devices, the presence of other Wi-Fi networks, and barriers such as walls can all interfere with Wi-Fi signals and degrade them.

Cables are also vulnerable to signal degradation. But assuming you’ve installed them correctly and are performing the necessary maintenance, they’re significantly less prone to interference and offer overall greater stability than Wi-Fi. (One of the qualities of Cat6 cables in particular are their ability to minimize cross-talk.)

Office layout

Fewer cables means it’s easier to set up your office and arrange your devices. You won’t have to worry as much about where to install all the cables, and where they’ll run along (or within) the floor, walls, or ceilings to different devices. There’s less clutter and more flexibility in layout. For example, if you’re using a printer with a wireless connection, you don’t have to link it physically to the computing device you’re printing a file from. You can position the printer all the way across the room if that works better for your layout.

Chances are, your company will rely on some combination of wired and wireless communications. The specifics of the arrangements will depend on your business needs (now and in the future), and the devices you’re working with. Don’t hesitate to contact us for assistance in figuring out the best ways to set-up your Wi-Fi and cable installations.