The business world today is not like it used to be. Today you must know the acronyms and other tech terms just to have a casual conversation with a colleague. For example, run a quick search for “acronyms” on the Internet and you will find dozens of sites dedicated to deciphering the 2, 3, and 4+ letter words.
The technology arena has plenty of its’ own. Phrases like Wi-Fi, LAN, WAN, MAN, CRM, and WPA are just a few. You may have even heard these quick words in conversations with your local computer guy or see them day-to-day in your email. Do you ever wonder what they mean and how they can help your business?
In this weekly ‘BizTech’ column, we will be deciphering the technology acronyms and ‘techie’ terms that float around inside our inbox, newspaper, and TV. This week, I am going to shed some light on the subject that has been asked of me many, many times: Should I use Wi-Fi and which devices will benefit me?
Part1 - Wi-Fi, short for Wireless Fidelity, represents the wireless networking standard. It should be said that Wi-Fi has been around for a long time. There are people who argue that it is the only technology that has consistently flourished from year to year. There is no doubt that security and reliability have gotten better over time. The recent cost reductions in wireless equipment have been a large factor in the continued success of the technology. Even with that said, how can wireless technology benefit you and your business?
There are many implementations of Wi-Fi but for now, I will focus on Access Points. Some businesses gain benefit by being able to provide ‘hot spots’ (small areas of wireless network access) to their mobile workers. One example of this working effectively is in a real estate office. An office such as this has many employees who are traveling around during the day looking at properties. They have a need to gain access to maps, email, or other types of information and may use one of the cellular carriers to do this. (I will get into more detail on the cellular carriers and their wireless offerings after Part 2 of this topic.) But once these mobile workers are back at the office, they need to be able to access the corporate information quickly and easily. These workers may not have a specific office to work out of so having them plug in to the existing wired network may not be feasible. I have walked into many businesses that have employees working out of conference rooms or break rooms where there aren’t any network connections. This is a perfect scenario for Wi-Fi.
Deploying a small access point (AP) to your existing network will allow the mobile user to securely connect to the local network, without wires. Now your users can efficiently utilize network applications such as a CRM (customer relationship management) application, email, or the Internet and remain productive while sitting in the office. Most notebooks have a wireless interface card built-in or allow the addition of a wireless card. In the latest version of Windows, wireless connectivity is easily configured after establishing an access point, making the WLAN (wireless local area network) a fairly simple implementation.
Most access points are under $100 these days and have software bundled with them for easy installation on your network. However, the real trick is configuring the security. Since Wi-Fi travels across unregulated frequencies, any traffic that is not encrypted can be intercepted by an unauthorized party. There are a couple of different ways to configure security that I will touch on in next weeks’ column, Part 2 – Wi-Fi.
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