I cover wireless LANs and enterprise mobile computing for "Network World." This has been an interesting thread to follow. I've been intrigued by 11a/5GHz since writing about some 11a and 11a-only deployments about 3 years ago, including several colleges and universities: Mount Saint Mary College in New York, Framingham State College in Massachusetts, and Villanova Univ. As you probably have heard, Meru and Morrisville State College (also in NY) announced this week that MSC will deploy a 900-node 11n WLAN this summer. I was able to talk with MSC VP of Information Services Jean Boland, and the IBM wireless architect for the project, and we posted a story late yesterday: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/062107-meru-80211n-wlan.html One of the key issues MSC, Meru, and IBM (the systems integrator for the project) have wrestled with is which bands to use for what. The goal is to eventually have all 11n traffic on one radio in 5GHz, and reserve 2.4 on the second radio for legacy clients. But they're likely at first to also offer 11n on 2.4 also, because their sense is that 11n adapters/dongles/etc will be more readily available initially for that band. With the newly announced Meru AP300 (the two-radio 11n product), the 2.4 band can be split into a 20MHz channel, for legacy 11b/g clients, and a 40MHz channel, for the 11n clients. New freshman for September 2007 are getting the latest Lenovo ThinkPads with an integrated 11abgn adapter, and they'll be configured to connect on the 5GHz band. And with regard to Frank Bulk's comments on pricing....Meru confirmed that the dual-radio AP300 list price is $1,495, which is abouit 2x their existing dual-radio ABG access point. Boland declined to put a pricetag on their project, and I note in the story that, as you know better than I, many vendors have a separate pricing scheme for education customers, and often will adjust price if you're willing to dance on the cutting edge of a new product deployment. It will be interesting to see how the "11n premium" affects deployment decisions. I hope this gives folks a bit more food for thought. Our stories have a comments section if you'd also like to share thoughts and reactions with an audience of peers outside the listserv. Jean Boland and her network administrator Matt Barber have said they'll look in on the comments section periodically over the next 6 business days and reply (I'm checking with our online editors: we may move that into a separate forum, but if so there should be a link to that). I've asked Meru and IBM to consider participating also, but have not heard back from them yet.
________________________________ From: Frank Bulk [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thu 6/21/2007 1:32 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] The strategic importance of 5GHz Thanks for sharing your thoughts. You're right, the initial price points I'm hearing suggest a 50% to 75% premium over dual-radio, dual-band APs today. There's been a lot of Meru love on this listserv, so let me bring the romance down a notch by suggesting that their opening price of $1500 for a pre-802.11n AP is an absolutely astonishing example of "value pricing". Cisco and Aruba shared some possible price ranges with me and upon hearing them I felt only more sure than ever that most enterprises will not delay their summer purchases for pre-802.11n capable APs and that the majority of pre-802.11n APs sold this fall will be to enterprises trialing a few units. That said, I do think the most likely long-term solution is to replace existing APs with a dual-radio AP, one radio using a 2.4 GHz 802.11b/g and the other using 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz 802.11n. Some might be tempted to overlay their existing wireless infrastructure with a separate single radio, dual-band 802.11n AP, but that will require separate Ethernet cables runs and legacy clients running against the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz bands will substantially reduce the performance advantage. Of course, if you wait 3 years then most of the legacy clients in a Higher Ed organization will have naturally aged out with 802.11n clients and it's not as much of a concern. Then the question is how much capacity you want, and the more radios you have the more channels that can be used. Regards, Frank -----Original Message----- From: Enfield, Chuck [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2007 3:41 PM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] The strategic importance of 5GHz I started responding to the thread titled "The strategic importance of 802.11a" an quickly got off topic. Frank covered that topic quite well, so I'd like to change the subject from "g" vs. "a" to 2.4GHz vs. 5GHz. I'd like to discourage the use of 2.4GHz, 802.11n APs. Since we all have to buy new hardware for 802.11n anyway, this is probably our best opportunity to get away from all the limitations of the 2.4GHz band. I believe the best way to avoid migration path issues from "a/g" to "n" will be to roll out 802.11n at 5GHz and retain 802.11g for legacy clients. I'm concerned that because MIMO APs cost more and dual-band APs cost more, dual-band MIMO APs will cost much more. A substantial premium for dual-band, 802.11n APs will lead people to buy single-band devices. If we're counting on "n" to support legacy clients, that band will have to be 2.4GHz. If we get any significant distance down that path, we may be stuck at 2.4GHz until the next technology comes out. I know the standard is being developed around backward compatibility, but that doesn't mean we have to use it. If we can convince vendors that we don't need 802.11n to support legacy clients there's hope for affordable 5GHz 802.11n. I can envision two ways to support legacy clients without using 802.11n. One is to leave our existing 802.11b/g infrastructures in place for legacy clients. I know none of us want to support two infrastructures, but until we replace everything we'll be doing that anyway. We can hope that the advantages of 802.11n will be so great that everybody will upgrade their clients before the roll-out is even completed (yes, I'm being uncharacteristically optimistic). The other is ask manufacturers to provide a relatively cheap 802.11g radio in a 5GHz, 802.11n AP. The obvious drawback to that is paying extra for a radio we hope not to use, but it shouldn't be a tremendous premium. I hope to get lots of feedback on this, even if it's just to tell me I'm nuts. I've been saying for years that the future is at 5GHz, but I fear we're in danger of missing another opportunity to exploit that potential. Chuck Enfield Sr. Communications Engineer Penn State University Telecommunications & Networking Services 110 USB2, UP, PA 16802 Ph. (814) 863-8715 Fx. (814) 865-3988 ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
