We are in the midst of some major marketing energy coming from many WLAN Vendors about 802.11ac. I think .11ac is going to be a great step forward in Wireless LAN technology. But… there are a couple of questions that come to mind based on all this hype going on. Perhaps a minute or two to answer the following questions will put a bit of a reality check back into the .11ac discussion.
- Do you believe WLAN Vendors are sharing with you everything they know about .11ac technology? Both today & near future?
- Does your current WLAN Vendor’s – ‘Band Steering’ solution work properly in your environment?
- Do you already have a preponderance of 5GHz-capable clients?
- Is your wired infrastructure verified and tested to support .11ac speeds?
- Are you currently running 5GHz 20MHz channels for a reason? Do you want to/can move to 40MHz or even 80MHz?
- Do you need the increased aggregate high-density capacity to meet an unfilled need in your WLAN requirements?
- Does your current WLAN Vendor’s – ‘AirTime Fairness’ solution work properly in your environment today?
- Are your current AP’s ‘End of Life’ from your Vendor? Is ongoing support available?
- Can your WLAN work within the constraints on encrypted clients and minimal CPU power in current .11ac AP chipsets?
- Do you need the additional ‘horsepower’ and efficiencies that come with newer, updated .11ac chipsets?
- Do you need the Higher Peak Data rates afforded to those .11ac clients that support it?
- Do you know HOW to design for .11ac? Compared with .11n or legacy WLANs – what different design constraints will you have?
- Have you already removed all ‘Legacy’ devices (.11agb) from your WLAN?
- Do you like paying a extra premium for the ‘new’ness of .11ac?
- Do you have Gig switches w/support PoE 802.3at? Is your cabling infrastructure gig-ready? Is your distribution layer ready?
- Are you currently running .11agb only Access Points and need to upgrade? Would .11n AP’s meet your WLAN requirements?
- How do you cable for .11ac? One or two cables? Cat5e? Cat6a? Cat7? It is going to be a problem.
- Is your current .11n WLAN running at full capacity now?
- Do you want to return to using USB as your Wi-Fi NIC of choice? Are .11ac USB NICs up to enterprise standards?
- Are their options for integrated .11ac clients in your user-base of laptops, smartphones, or tablets?
- Have there been any independent tests of Enterprise .11ac Access Points to do adequate comparisons on capabilities yet?
- Does your Wireless NMS/Controller have adequate abilities to track and manage .11ac features and functions?
- Do you have the ability to use 80MHz channels in your infrastructure without causing more issues? (check channel plan options)
- Do you have a decent .11ac client base to use all these new features?
- Do your WLAN Professional tools support .11ac for design, validation, or troubleshooting? If not now, when?