Going Wi-Fi: A Practical Guide to Planning and Building an 802.11 Network

Overview

Vertical markets or industries refer to the segmentation of industries by type and/or business processes. Manufacturing, aerospace, construction, healthcare, and education are each an individual vertical industry. There are also large corporations and conglomerates that span many vertical markets, such as General Electric.

It was among the vertical industries that wireless networking first achieved popularity. The mobility provided by wireless networks caused proprietary wireless solutions to be implemented into vertical markets such as warehouses, distribution centers, and manufacturing, long before the IEEE 802.11 standards hit the scene. But the standardization provided by the 802.11 series and declining price points have helped to make 802.11-based WLANs the cornerstone of wireless networking everywhere, trampling many proprietary standards out of existence.

New vertical markets-education, hospitality, retail and wholesale, transportation and logistics, healthcare, and others-are stampeding toward the Wi-Fi camp. Today, WLANs, based on the 802.11 series of standards, are used for a multitude of vertical applications to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of their daily processes.

Many verticals find that the critical impetus for their adoption of wireless networking is that Wi-Fi provides an effective means for their workers to connect wirelessly to the organization's central data bank. Some vertical markets where mobile workers need access to real-time information, and the ability to process that information, are as follows:

• The warehousing industry finds WLANs indispensable. These innovative networks can decrease the number of inventory specialists required, making warehousing systems more efficient, less costly, and more accurate.

• Manufacturers use WLANs in a number of ways. For example, a WLAN could enable a quality engineer to proactively investigate a defective production line, using a WLAN to record and analyze information on the fault, and fix the problem as quickly as possible.

• Retail and wholesale organizations use wireless networks to maintain accurate and timely manufacturing and inventory control processes. Inventory control is a high overhead activity, and errors such as shipping the wrong items, restocking charges and mollifying dissatisfied customers can be costly. But the combination of barcode scanning and real-time wireless database updates can help an organization tighten its inventory management processes.

• In the transportation and logistics industry, companies like Federal Express and UPS have found that a WLAN can beneficially affect their bottom line. FedEx, for example, uses its WLANs to automatically move package data from its drivers' portable computers to the corporate database at the end of the day or when the van returns to its home base.

• Healthcare facilities use WLANs to enable their caregivers to access patient information instantly. With WLAN access, a healthcare professional can create new or refill existing prescriptions, access laboratory test results, dictate patient notes, or capture photos of patient's conditions and email them to a colleague for a second opinion.

• The hospitality industry is finding that wireless check-in and restaurant/poolside ordering is useful, especially in large facilities. Large hotel and casino complexes find that wireless connectivity allows managers to get "out from behind the desk" to personally interact with hotel guests while retaining timely access to back-end systems, enabling them to make real-time decisions that positively affect the property's financial performance. Restaurants use Wi-Fi to improve order accuracy, customer service, and more.

• Educational institutions recognize the advantages of untethering their students and staff. They quickly grasped the fact that a Wi-Fi network could satisfy the demands of thousands of Net-hungry students without dragging miles of category 5 cabling through large campuses and century-old facilities.

There are as many potential wireless applications as there are organizational categories. WLANs are used to keep tabs on valuable assets-from laboratory equipment to cargo-that need to be tracked at all times (in part to prevent loss, theft, or damage). Wireless sensors, tags, or transceivers can identify the location of these assets-and even monitor their condition remotely.

Wireless networking is quickly becoming a favorite tool at trade shows, conventions, fairs, and other events. Reliable network environments can be established rapidly, and then removed just as quickly when the event is over. For example, WLANs can manage temporary check-in / check-out facilities at events. Or enable reporters and journalists to access their centralized data (e.g. reports and statistics) from any location within an event venue such as the Winter Olympics.

Major metropolitan communities install access points on rooftops. (Many downtown areas are not much different from a college campus when it comes to size and geography.) The financial industry, too, has found WLANs useful, for example, in enabling securities traders to conduct transactions as they roam the stock exchange floor.

According to Gartner, more than 50 percent of all WLAN implementations through 2004 will take place within the vertical marketplace. Ken Dulaney, vice president and research director for Gartner, says that the applications for WLANs in vertical markets such as retail, transportation, and construction are endless. "Quantifiable results can easily be measured by baselining nonwireless productivity and costs, and measuring them against wireless-based communications systems."

The benefits of wireless networking are tangible and quantifiable. For example, New Orleans' Oschner Clinic and Hospital deployed a WLAN within its facilities and quickly found that time in its emergency room was down 20 to 25 minutes per patient, because medical personnel use the network to research treatments and register patients at their bedside.