2013 Wireless Lan Survey

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M arch 2013

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2013 Wireless LAN
Survey
It’s a mobile world, and Wi-Fi is displacing wired

89% use 802.11 as a client network
access method, up from 76% in 2010.
Ethernet:

Still, IT must meet high expectations for network speed,
security and reliability. Perhaps that’s why a
surprising

45% have plans to deploy 802.11ac

gear in production.
By Kurt Marko

Report ID: R6330313

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CONTENTS

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11
13
16
18
20
22
23
24
25
29
31
35

Author’s Bio
Executive Summary
Research Synopsis
WLANs Under Pressure
Traffic Jam of Epic Proportions
802.11n Now the Baseline
802.11ac: Get Ready to Fly
Passport to Security
WIPS: Protect and Monitor
Business and Product Trends
Architectural Digest
The Vendor Landscape
Talk Is EAP
4 Top Design Considerations
Conclusions and Recommendations
Appendix
Related Reports

2013 Wireless LAN Survey

Figures
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TABLE OF

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Figure 1: WLAN Predictions
Figure 2: WLAN Worries
Figure 3: Percentage of Client Network
Traffic Traveling Over a Wireless Network
Figure 4: Mobile Devices as Percent of
Total Wireless Clients
Figure 5: Use of 802.11n
Figure 6: Maintenance Timeframe for
802.11a/b/g Networks
Figure 7: What Comes When
Figure 8: Vendor Outlooks on 11ac
Figure 9: Change in Wireless Traffic Over
the Past Year
Figure 10: 802.11ac Deployment Plans
Figure 11: Percentage of Dual-Band
Wireless Clients
Figure 12: Most Important Vendor
Evaluation Criteria
Figure 13: Most Important WLAN AP and
Controller Features
Figure 14: Methods Used to Enroll and
Provision Mobile Devices on WLAN
Figure 15: WLAN Integration With Wired
Infrastructure

21 Figure 16: Most Important AP Features
22 Figure 17: Controller-Based Vs.
Autonomous System
23 Figure 18: Wireless Vendors in Use
24 Figure 19: Plans for Running Voice Traffic
Over WLAN
25 Figure 20: Important Features for
Support of Voice-Over-Wi-Fi
26 Figure 21: Steps Taken to Ensure Wireless
Reliability
27 Figure 22: WLAN Management Tool
Capabilities
28 Figure 23: Strategy for Handling Growth
in WLAN Use
31 Figure 24: Job Title
32 Figure 25: Industry
33 Figure 26: Revenue
34 Figure 27: Company Size

March 2013 2

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Kurt Marko
InformationWeek Reports

2013 Wireless LAN Survey

Kurt Marko is an InformationWeek and Network Computing contributor and IT
industry veteran, pursuing his passion for communications after a varied career that
has spanned virtually the entire high-tech food chain, from chips to systems. Upon
graduating from Stanford University with a BS and MS in electrical engineering, Kurt
spent several years as a semiconductor device physicist, doing process design,
modeling and testing. He then joined AT&T Bell Laboratories as a memory chip
designer and CAD and simulation developer.
Moving to Hewlett-Packard, Kurt started in the laser printer R&D lab doing
electrophotography development, for which he earned a patent, but his love of
computers eventually led him to join HP’s nascent technical IT group. He spent 15
years as an IT engineer and was a lead architect for several enterprise-wide
infrastructure projects at HP, including the Windows domain infrastructure, remote
access service, Exchange email infrastructure and managed Web services.

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SUMMARY

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EXECUTIVE

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2013 Wireless LAN Survey

Dense flash memory and advanced batteries made smartphones and tablets feasible; wireless networks make them
useful. Given the cost of cellular access, the multiplying number of mobile devices and the imminent ratification of the
superfast 802.11ac specification, we decided to survey InformationWeek readers about their wireless LANs today and
plans for the future.
Among the 419 respondents to our InformationWeek 2013 Wireless LAN Survey, 89% use 802.11n technologies as a
network access method for end users, up from 76% in September 2010.
Other data points:
> Nearly one-quarter of the 363 respondents using WLAN technologies say traffic volume has exploded over
the last year.
> 45% have plans in the works to deploy 802.11ac gear on production networks and over half of those will move as
soon as products are available.
> 37% see wireless replacing the wired infrastructure within five years.
> 34% have 25% or more of client traffic sent or received over wireless networks.
> 18% run legacy autonomous systems where each access point is configured independently and each makes all forwarding decisions; that’s down from 32% in our 2010 survey.
In this report we:
> Examine the business and technology trends pushing the move to wireless, like that superfast 802.11ac standard.
> Discuss features that make WLANs more secure and predictable.
> Provide recommendations for building, and more effectively using, a wireless client backbone that can adapt to
skyrocketing traffic growth, changing back-end infrastructure technology and a dynamic mix of client devices.
Respondent breakdown: 34% have 5,000 or more employees; 21% have more than 10,000. Education, government,
healthcare and noncomputer manufacturing are well represented, and 50% are IT director/manager or IT executive
management (C-level/VP) level.

March 2013 4

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InformationWeek Reports’
analysts arm business technology
decision-makers with real-world
perspective based on qualitative
and quantitative research, business and technology assessment
and planning tools, and adoption
best practices gleaned from
experience.

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director; [email protected]
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SYNOPSIS

ABOUT US

reports

RESEARCH

2013 Wireless LAN Survey

Survey Name InformationWeek 2013 Wireless LAN Survey
Survey Date December 2012
Region North America
Number of Respondents 419
Purpose To determine interest in the use of WLANs and concerns about expanding use
of wireless technologies in the enterprise.
Methodology InformationWeek surveyed business technology decision-makers at
North American companies. The survey was conducted online, and respondents were
recruited via an email invitation containing an embedded link to the survey. The email
invitation was sent to qualified InformationWeek subscribers.

March 2013 5

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2013 Wireless LAN Survey

WLANs Under Pressure
Even with 802.11n advances and wireless
vendors’ skill at squeezing every bit of
throughput from available spectrum, many
wireless LANs are barely keeping up with reliability, security and performance demands.
And the pressure is not about to let up.
“Our district recently appropriated nearly
$1 million to upgrade the wireless infrastructure to support our 1,600 employees and
12,000 students,” says the CIO of a K-12 district. “We have had over 13,000 unique registrations on our wireless system since September. That number seems to grow by
about 100 devices per day.” While he has no
plans to abandon the wired client network,
he also knows beyond a shadow of a doubt
that it’s not the future.
IT pros in the education sector may be on
the front lines, but enterprises had better pay
attention. Our recent InformationWeek 4G and
the Future of Mobility Survey shows strong
adoption of smartphones and tablets, along
with plans by 80% to offload traffic from celreports.informationweek.com

lular to Wi-Fi and small-cell networks. Yet our
InformationWeek 2013 Wireless LAN Survey of
419 business technology professionals suggests many aren’t facing the reality of a future
workforce that views mobility as a commod-

ity. When asked how, over the next five years,
respondents see WLANs evolving within their
shops as an end user access method, 58% said
wireless and wired networks will live side by
side in fairly constant proportions — that’s ac-

Figure 1

WLAN Predictions
Over the next five years, how do you predict that wireless LANs will evolve within your environment as an end user
access method?
2013

2011

In the very near term, we’re ripping out our wired access networks and going wireless wherever possible

3%
4%
I see wireless quickly replacing the wired access infrastructure over one to three years

13%
12%
I see wireless gradually replacing the wired access infrastructure over maybe four or five years

21%
21%
Wireless is a sizable complementary extension to our wired network, and I foresee them living side by side in fairly constant proportions

58%
55%
Wireless won’t gain much traction with us and will be minimized or non-existent; wired access methods will continue to be dominant

5%
8%
Base: 419 respondents in December 2012 and 339 in September 2010
Data: InformationWeek Wireless LAN Survey of business technology professionals

R6330313/2

March 2013 6

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WLAN Worries

Note: Four responses allowed
Base: 419 respondents in December 2012 and 339 in September 2010
Data: InformationWeek Wireless LAN Survey of business technology professionals

11%
8%

I have zero concerns; it’s ready for prime time

3%
5%

Upheaval; it’s very different from wired, and we don’t know
enough about it

9%
9%

Maturity; I’d rather see more peers adopt before we deploy

10%
11%

Company or governmental policy forbids its use

14%
12%

Cost; it’s too expensive

36%

43%

41%

2011

49%

2013

Consistency; I don’t have the same experience every time

use cloud.

significant demand from the retail and hospitality sectors. Businesses are not only adding
Wi-Fi for in-store guest access, they’re using it
to update traditionally static business

What reservations do you have about wireless LANs as the predominant alternative to traditional wired access to the
desktop?

Data security; I don’t trust it

of your employees

Google Docs or some SaaS application purchased on the sly by a business unit. It’s not
just employees, either. Kaustubh Phanse, chief
evangelist at AirTight, says his company sees
Figure 2

51%
50%

100%

tually up from 55% in September 2010.
Guess what? Copper is out, radio waves and
inductive charging are in.
Replacing cables with ether for business
use means replicating the performance, reliability and security of Cat6 Ethernet, an unrealistic goal — until recently. Mature 802.11n
and the advent of second- and third-generation gear and security schemes have largely
made good on two out three, and the
802.11ac standard should essentially close
the performance gap for all but the most demanding scenarios.
Then there’s the cloud. Our InformationWeek
2013 State of Cloud Computing Survey of 446
business technology professionals at organizations with 50 or more employees shows
80% using (40%), planning for (13%) or considering (27%) these services. Likewise, 78% of
4G and the Future of Mobility Survey respondents say mobile access to cloud providers
will have an impact on enterprise IT services
over the next three years.
News flash: 100% of your employees use
cloud. We guarantee it. Maybe it’s Dropbox,

2013 Wireless LAN Survey

Reliability; I can’t rely on it always working

FAST FACT

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59%
55%

Table of Contents

Speed and performance; it’s not fast enough

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March 2013 7

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Research: 2012 State of
Mobile Security
With 62% already allowing
personal devices at work, IT’s
juggling laptop policies and Wi-Fi
policies and BYOD policies —
and that means security gaps big
enough to drive a semi through.
Most, 80%, require only passwords for mobile devices that
access enterprise data/networks,
yet just 14% require hardware
encryption, no exceptions. Let’s
be clear: Mobile security is data
security, and we must do better.

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processes, like point-of-sale or inventory management systems. Mobile commerce is on the
horizon, as we discuss in this report, and it’s
going to have an economic impact. Whether
the effect is positive or negative for your organization depends on how well you prepare.
Unfortunately, the mobile revolution has
given us wireless endpoints that are substantively less capable than laptops. As we discuss
in depth in this InformationWeek column, the
Wi-Fi radios in many mobile clients operate at
lower power than laptops, although this is
largely mitigated by the chips used in new
hardware like the latest Apple devices or
Google Nexus and Samsung Galaxy lines. They
also don’t support multiple Wi-Fi channels.
Vendors tout the ability of MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) radios to support multiple spatial streams for a single connection. But
taking advantage requires multiple antennas
and more power-hungry, multistream Wi-Fi
chips, design requirements at odds with small,
thin form factors and long battery life. Most
smartphones and tablets are, therefore, 1SS
(single spatial stream) implementations (the

2013 Wireless LAN Survey

exceptions being dual-band devices that support a single stream on both the 2.4 and 5 GHz
frequency bands). With 1SS clients, everyone
is still trying to share the same airtime on a
given channel, which leads to a massive radio
frequency traffic jam.
This means rethinking conventional WLAN
design wisdom, as we’ll discuss.
Figure 3

Traffic Jam of Epic Proportions
Our WLAN survey shows ample evidence of
an impending logjam. Of the 97% of WLAN
users who measure traffic, 21% say volume
has escalated over the last year, with 34% seeing increases of 25% or more; 12% have seen
50% or greater growth. Yet despite these
sometimes dramatic upticks, most organiza-

Percentage of Client Network Traffic Traveling Over a Wireless Network
What percentage of your client network traffic is sent or received over wireless network access?

Don’t know
We don’t keep track
More than 75%

3%

50% to 75%

6% 3%

Less than 10%

21%

9%

22%
25% to 49%

36%

10% to 24%

Base: 363 respondents at organizations using wireless LAN technologies
Data: InformationWeek 2013 Wireless LAN Survey of 419 business technology professionals, December 2012

R6330313/4

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tions are still in reactive mode. Their primary
coping mechanism: throwing hardware at the
problem.
The thing is, just piling on more access
points in high-use areas, as 68% of those experiencing an increase in traffic do, will get
you only so far.
Fortunately, most respondents realize that a
new WLAN plan is needed. Half of those who
have seen an increase in traffic over the past
year are redesigning networks around highercapacity hardware, while 28% are moving capable clients out of the overcrowded 2.4 GHz
ghetto to the faster 5 GHz band.
Of course, wired networks are hardly in jeopardy inside the data center or for wireless AP
backhaul. But as discussed, just 16% expect
wireless to replace wired at the edge imminently (3%) or within three years (13%), a figure that didn’t budge even a point in the 26
months between surveys.
Not surprisingly, those in the wireless industry see things differently. Phanse of AirTight
says that, with 802.11n products now stable
and mature, many of its customers do finally
reports.informationweek.com

2013 Wireless LAN Survey

view Wi-Fi as a reliable alternative to wired. He
also sees dispersion of Wi-Fi from central campuses to branch offices and retail stores, with
organizations rolling out wireless to hundreds, even thousands, of remote sites.
Maybe so, but sheer numbers aren’t all we
need to worry about. Diversity in both number of clients and locales makes it much
Figure 4

harder to keep network policies and configurations consistent. It’s a key reason, Phanse
says, that cloud-based WLAN management
products such as AirTight’s, paired with intelligent APs in a controllerless design, are getting more popular.
Interestingly, 234 of our respondents have
WLAN management tools that are able to

Mobile Devices as Percentage of Total Wireless Clients
What percentage of wireless clients accessing your network are mobile devices (smartphones and tablets)?

Don’t know
More than 75%

Less than 10%

3%
10%

21%

50% to 75%

21%
23%

10% to 24%

22%
25% to 49%
Base: 234 respondents with wireless LAN management tools that identify specific device types, vendors, operating systems or standards in use
R6330313/8
Data: InformationWeek 2013 Wireless LAN Survey of 419 business technology professionals, December 2012
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identify the specific device types, vendors, operating systems and/or standards in use on
their networks. This is the first time we asked
about client distribution, and we saw an even
spread in terms of mobile devices as a percentage of wireless clients accessing the network. This is one stat we look forward to tracking in future surveys. After all, market research
firm Strategy Analytics estimates that 700 million smartphones were shipped worldwide
last year, about a 43% increase over 2011.
That’s directly translating to growth in the
WLAN equipment market: IDC estimates that
enterprise WLAN revenues were up 24% in the
third quarter of 2012, the sixth consecutive
quarter of annualized growth of 20% or more.
Our InformationWeek Outlook 2013 Survey
of 728 business technology professionals, all
of whom are involved in IT budgeting or purchasing, shows upgrading wireless networks
is high on project lists for 2013. We asked
about 19 initiatives; the top 10 are, in order:
improve information security, upgrade our
network infrastructure, upgrade our storage
infrastructure, improve our data, deploy moreports.informationweek.com

2013 Wireless LAN Survey

bile device management for smartphones
and tablets, upgrade the wireless network, introduce new IT-led products and services for
our customers, launch or upgrade employee
collaboration system, deploy virtual desktops

and create mobile apps for customers.
Arguably, WLAN technologies play into at
least six of these priorities, good news for vendors gearing up for 802.11ac ratification. IDC
also sees mobility continuing to drive growth

Figure 5

Use of 802.11n
Is your organization using 802.11 wireless LAN technologies as a network access method for end users?
2013

2011

Yes; using it on a large scale and growing it

60%
39%
Yes; using it for very specific purposes

29%
37%
No, but we’re currently evaluating it

7%
15%
No; we’re interested but prohibited from using it

2%
5%
No; we think wireless is a bad idea — we just don’t trust it for one or more reasons

2%
2%
No; not interested because we think wired is the way to go

0%
2%
Base: 419 respondents in December 2012 and 339 in September 2010
Data: InformationWeek Wireless LAN Survey of business technology professionals

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across both the enterprise and service provider segments. Mirroring results from our
survey, IDC finds Cisco the leading WLAN vendor, with 50% worldwide market share, followed by Aruba, Hewlett-Packard and Ruckus,
with 23% combined. These figures demonstrate just how fragmented, and hence ripe
for acquisitions and consolidation, the wireless market still is.
Fortunately, there seems to be enough pie
to go around. Dell’Oro Group, which tracks
every segment of the network equipment
ecosystem, expects the WLAN market to increase nearly 50%, to $11 billion, by 2017.
Dell’Oro attributes such sustained growth, an
almost 8.5% compound annual growth rate,
to deployment of service provider Wi-Fi, the
802.11ac upgrade cycle, cloud-managed
WLANs, consumer video over Wi-Fi, the expansion of bring-your-own-device programs
and a shift in enterprise application development toward mobile devices. Gartner estimates the enterprise WLAN segment will
grow even faster, at an 18.4% CAGR, hitting almost $8 billion by 2016.

2013 Wireless LAN Survey

Figure 6

Maintenance Timeframe for 802.11a/b/g Networks
Approximately how long do you estimate you will maintain your 802.11a/b/g networks?
2013

2011

They are being ripped out and replaced now

9%
8%
About a year

9%
10%
2 to 3 years

35%
40%
Longer than 3 years

28%
26%
Don’t know

19%
16%
Base: 363 respondents in December 2012 and 242 in September 2010 at organizations using wireless LAN technologies
Data: InformationWeek Wireless LAN Survey of business technology professionals

802.11n Now the Baseline
It represented one of the most torturous
network standardization slogs in recent
memory — we’re talking a full seven years
from initial publication to final ratification.
But 802.11n is now an aging, and increas-

R6330313/17

ingly inadequate, standard. Still, we can
thank 11n for a monumental improvement
in wireless performance via its incorporation
of plenty of innovative technology, from a
new frequency band and better coding techniques to the bandwidth- and capacityMarch 2013 11

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2013 Wireless LAN Survey

Figure 7

FAST FACT

89%
of respondents use 11n
in some form.

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enhancing MIMO. All of these will benefit the follow-on
802.11ac standard.
Our survey finds that 802.11n is now the norm for virtually all enterprise WLANs: 89% of respondents use 11n in
some form, 60% extensively. One sign that wireless has
finally conquered years of FUD about security, reliability
and performance: A mere 2% of our respondents are sticking with wired networks because they don’t trust wireless
or think it’s “a bad idea.” “Wireless LANs are forbidden per
company policy,” says a systems analyst for one of the
largest U.S. law firms. “Users can connect wirelessly to our
ISP then connect to our network using VPN or Citrix.” We’re
sure that’s a popular policy.
On the back end, network equipment tends to take on a
life of its own, and APs are no exception. Maybe it’s that we
just don’t know what to do with piles of outdated hardware, but it’s often a bear to decommission obsolete gear.
To wit, nearly half of our respondents have no near-term
plans to retire legacy a/b/g equipment. In fact, the share of
those not planning to rip and replace older equipment is
actually up five points since our last survey.
At some point, you have to let go, and let us be clear: 11ac
is coming. As we discuss in this in-depth report, the Wi-Fi
Certified draft 11ac products likely to emerge in the next
few months will boost max data rates above 1 Gbps. By late

What Comes When
Enhancement

802.11n

802.11ac (draft)

802.11ac (final)

Data rates

1x1: Up to 150 Mbps
2x2: Up to 300 Mbps
3x3: Up to 450 Mbps

1x1: Up to 433 Mbps
2x2: Up to 866 Mbps
3x3: Up to 1.3 Gbps

1x1: Up to 866 Mbps
2x2: Up to 1.7 Mbps
4x4: Up to 3.4 Gbps
8x8: Up to 6.9 Gbps

Modulation

BPSK (binary phase-shift keying)
& QPSK (quaternary phase-shift
keying)

BPSK & QPSK
16 & 64 QAM, with
256 QAM optional
Up to 4x rate

BPSK & QPSK
16 & 64 QAM, with
256 QAM optional
Up to 4x rate

RF band

2.4 GHz & 5 GHz

5 GHz
Reduced congestion

5 GHz
Reduced congestion

Channel width

20 MHz
40 MHz (optional)

20, 40, & 80 MHz
Up to 2x rate

20, 40 & 80 MHz
160 & 80+80 (optional)
Up to 4x rate

Spatial streams
and antennas

1 to 4 spatial streams
3x3 APs common

1 to 4 spatial streams
3x3 APs common

1 to 8 spatial streams
4x4 APs common
Up to 2x rate

Beamforming
Standard

None

None

MIMO

SU-MIMO

SU-MIMO

Data: InformationWeek Reports

Up to 1.3x rate
Optional
SU-MIMO
MU-MIMO (optional)
Up to 4x rate
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Figure 8

Vendor Outlooks on 11ac
Vendor

Draft 11ac

Released as

Aruba Networks

Early 2Q13

New APs

Aerohive Networks

1H13

New APs

Cisco Systems

1H13

New module

Meraki

1H13

New APs

Meru Networks

Mid- to late 2013

New APs

Motorola Solutions

3Q13

New APs

Ruckus Wireless

Mid-2013

New APs

Xirrus

Mid-2013

New module

Data: InformationWeek Reports
reports.informationweek.com

S

802.11ac: Get Ready to Fly
Unlike 11n, 802.11ac is more evolutionary
than revolutionary. The primary design goal
is, of course, higher throughput. Because
we’ve squeezed about all
the performance possiCustomer guidance
ble out of the 20 MHz
channels in the 2.4 GHz
Migrate to 5 GHz, deploy 11ac in a targeted fashion to extend 11n WLANs,
unlicensed band used by
looking at user behavior to choose mix of rates and widths.
ever y Wi-Fi standard
Get started with 11ac by dropping new APs into existing WLAN to
since 802.11b, it’s not surincrease user density in hotspots and learn how 11ac performs.
prising that 11ac works
Deploy AP3600 with 4x4 11n radio, field-upgradable to new 11ac module.
only on the 5 GHz band.
A new 11ac AP will follow three to six months later.
A Cisco whitepaper sums
Most customers are not waiting for 11ac; use Cloud Controller predictive
up the situation nicely:
analysis to identify where to drop in 11ac APs.
“By design, 802.11ac is inUse $499 investment protection coupon to trade in 11n APs for 11ac,
tended to operate only in
mounted in same brackets to facilitate swap-out.
the 5 GHz band. This
11n has still has long life; majority of customer base will wait for second
avoids much of the interwave. Use WLAN Planner to evaluate implications.
ference at 2.4 GHz, including Bluetooth headThink about AP density and plan for 5 GHz coverage. Draft 11ac may be
underwhelming if goal is max capacity – focus on second wave.
sets and microwave
ovens, and provides a
Deploy field-upgradable XR-2200 Wireless Array with two open slots for
strong incentive for users
modular 11ac APs (may be prepurchased at discounted price).
to upgrade their mobile
S6151112/2

2014 or early 2015, products aligned with the
final 11ac standard will nudge the speedometer closer to 7 Gbps from the current 4 Mbps.
Don’t think for a minute you can ignore that.

2013 Wireless LAN Survey

devices (and hotspot APs).” Speed sells.
Don’t worry about supporting older clients,
though; enterprise 11ac APs will be dualband, running 11n at 2.4 GHz. In fact, Andrew
vonNagy, senior Wi-Fi architect at Aerohive,
says 11ac doesn’t include the dramatic RF design changes — things like a new frequency
band and MIMO — that made the move to
11n so arduous. As a result, he expects migration to be much quicker this time around,
with many customers willing to try draft
equipment once the Wi-Fi Alliance starts certifying products in the next few months.
Like 11n, the new standard uses MIMO but
ups the limit to eight spatial streams from four
(although it’s still virtually impossible to find
APs supporting more than three). Like its
predecessor, 11ac can also use 20 MHz and 40
MHz channels, but adds support for 80 MHz
(required) and 160 MHz (optional) channels.
That enhancement will improve performance
but also significantly reduce the number of
free, nonoverlapping channels. Other new features include support for a more efficient
modulation scheme (256-QAM) and a stanMarch 2013 13

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dardized mechanism for beamforming, a
means of dynamically changing the spatial
sensitivity of antenna arrays to improve signal
reception and reduce background noise. This
will allow equipment from multiple vendors
to interoperate.
Organizations ready to start planning for
802.11ac should download our 802.11ac IT
Pro Impact report. Here are some top-level
recommendations:
>> Ensure that APs are positioned to accommodate higher frequencies, in which radio
waves are less apt to bend around corners or
traverse thick walls and are more prone to reflections. Matthew Gast, Aerohive’s director of
product management, says positioning your
11n APs to work well at 5 GHz is a start: “Those
mount points may not be perfect for 11ac, but
they’ll probably be good enough.” Tightening
up on spacing will also improve airtime capacity, and position APs high on walls and away
from corners unless you’re specifically trying to
limit signal bleed into an adjacent office.
>> Consider using RF planning tools to optimize coverage. Plenty of products are availreports.informationweek.com

2013 Wireless LAN Survey

Figure 9

Change in Wireless Traffic Over the Past Year
Over the last year, the percentage of wireless vs. wired client traffic at your organization has:

Don’t know
We don’t keep track
Decreased somewhat
1%
Stayed the same

1%
2%

11%

Exploded

21%

64%
Increased somewhat
Base: 363 respondents at organizations using wireless LAN technologies
Data: InformationWeek 2013 Wireless LAN Survey of 419 business technology professionals, December 2012

able, with most, like these from MetaGeek,
running on laptops using a USB-connected
spectrum analyzer. It takes expertise to understand and apply the results, so many organizations will be better off contracting with an
independent consultant or their wireless vendors of choice (most have professional services organizations) to conduct a site survey.

R6330313/5

>> Consider using power outlets or injectors instead of Power over Ethernet. Although
using the data cable to deliver power to farflung APs certainly simplifies wiring and reduces installation costs, the first wave of 11ac
APs will likely exceed PoE’s specified current
capacity. Unless you already have dual backhaul links, you may be out of luck.
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>> Reassess your wired backhaul to make
sure you have enough capacity. According to
the aforementioned Cisco whitepaper, firstwave 802.11ac products built around 80 MHz
will deliver at the physical layer up to 433
Mbps at the low end, 867 Mbps midtier and
1300 Mbps at the high end. Translated: A single Gigabit Ethernet link is the bare minimum
for each AP. You’re better off with two.
If you have a controller-based WLAN architecture using thin APs, consider the load on controllers and potential bottlenecks from backhauling all that additional traffic. Given that his
company is a pioneer in the use of thick APs
with distributed intelligence and forwarding
capabilities, we take with a grain of salt vonNagy’s assertion that most vendors are moving
to similar designs. Still, such a shift could be
one reason Cisco, which has long championed
a controller-based design, bought Meraki. Like
Aerohive, AirTight and Aruba, Meraki offers
thick APs that can be managed from a central
console or cloud service.
It’s not too soon to be thinking about this.
Check the IEEE’s 802.11 project timeline: The
reports.informationweek.com

2013 Wireless LAN Survey

fourth draft specification for 11ac was overwhelmingly approved in November and, after
a series of procedural measures this year, the
final standard is up for approval in this coming November. Although the Wi-Fi Alliance
hasn’t announced official plans regarding
11ac product certification, using 11n as a
guide, we expect it to start certifying products

against the final draft specification sometime
this spring, meaning that early adopters
should be able to start testing 11ac by the
summer.
VonNagy says he expects most WLAN vendors to have 11ac APs available within six
months after the final draft specification,
which was set out for a vote in January, is ap-

Figure 10

802.11ac Deployment Plans
Although the next-generation 802.11ac wireless standard won't be completed and ratified until next year at the
earliest, products supporting the draft specification are already coming to market. When do you plan to deploy
802.11ac gear on your production network?

ASAP; we’re already testing

As soon as a significant number of client
devices support 11ac, whether or not the
standard is ratified

3%
10%

No immediate plans;
it’s too early in the technology cycle

13%
55%

6%
13%

As soon as users and upper
management demand it

Once the draft spec is finalized
and draft-certified products are
available
Once the standard is finalized and
ratified and certified products are
available

Base: 363 respondents at organizations using wireless LAN technologies
Data: InformationWeek 2013 Wireless LAN Survey of 419 business technology professionals, December 2012

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25%
say less than 10% of their
fleets are capable of
accessing the faster and
far-less-crowded 5 GHz
band vs. 17% reporting
that half or more of their
clients are dual-band.

reports.informationweek.com

reports

proved. It’s likely that, given the evolutionary
nature of 11ac and guarantees of backward
compatibility with 11n, changes between the
draft and final IEEE standard will be minimal.
Thus, vonNagy predicts that by year’s end perhaps as much as half the new wireless access
equipment (APs, client interfaces) will be 11ac
and that by mid-2014, the majority of new APs
will be 11ac.
Now the question is, will IT pay attention?
Vendor optimism and standards body kumbaya aside, our survey shows that few respondents are chomping at the 11ac bit. More than
half, 55%, take a wait-and-see stance; 13% say
they’ll hold off until users and management
demand it.
This caution is understandable when you
realize that most organizations still aren’t
even fully utilizing the capabilities of their 11n
gear. Of those respondents tracking wireless
endpoint capabilities, 25% say less than 10%
of their fleets are capable of accessing the
faster and far-less-crowded 5 GHz band vs.
17% reporting that half or more of their
clients are dual-band. Fortunately, this num-

2013 Wireless LAN Survey

eight WLAN worries, behind performance and
reliability. The percentage citing it as a concern has dropped six points since 2010, and
it’s also at No. 3 among 16 evaluation criteria.
Today, devices and users are the weak links.
“There’s nothing in the Wi-Fi protocol that
helps the client,” says vonNagy. Yes, having an
identity component, such as authenticating

ber is poised to skyrocket as virtually every
new smartphone and tablet, and all laptops,
now sport dual-band radios.
Passport to Security
It’s a testament to authentication and
encryption protocols like 802.1X and WPA2
that security is in third place on our list of
Figure 11

Percentage of Dual-Band Wireless Clients
What percentage of your wireless clients are dual band, capable of operating on 5 GHz channels?

Don’t know

12%

Less than 10%

25%

We don’t keep track

12%

More than 75%

5%
10% to 24%

19%

12%
50% to 75%

15%
25% to 49%

Base: 234 respondents with wireless LAN management tools that identify specific device types, vendors, operating systems or standards in use
R6330313/9
Data: InformationWeek 2013 Wireless LAN Survey of 419 business technology professionals, December 2012
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Although all modern mobile operating systems support WPA2 and 802.1X, smartphones
and tablets can throw a curve at some enterprise network security practices. Jim Beren-

with a Radius or EAP server, helps. But client
security is the responsibility of mobile device
management, or MDM, and endpoint management software, not the WLAN.
Figure 12

Most Important Vendor Evaluation Criteria

reports.informationweek.com

2%
6%

Wi-Fi Alliance certification

5%
8%

Built-in radio frequency planning and coverage tools

7%
7%

Buying from a single vendor

18%
10%

One that self-adjusts and tunes itself

12%
9%

Complete wired and wireless network integration

22%
14%

Buying from an established vendor

16%
16%

Built-in diagnostic tools

22%
29%

Low capital expenditure cost

24%
28%

Low operational cost

37%
39%

Ease of use for technology staff

40%
Low maintenance

Scalability

Security

45%

50%

61%

77%
76%

79%
74%
Speed and performance

Reliability

Note: Six responses allowed
Base: 363 respondents in December 2012 and 242 in September 2010 at organizations using wireless LAN technologies
Data: InformationWeek Wireless LAN Survey of business technology professionals

9%
9%

2011

90%
87%

2013

One network management system for both wireless and wired networks

When evaluating a wireless vendor's offering, what's most important to you?

R6330313/15

baum, a mobility and wireless research director at Gartner, says many organizations use
network proxies for traffic filtering and outbound Internet access. Although both iOS and
Android can proxy Wi-Fi connections, it’s an
added configuration step that most users
aren’t familiar with and are likely to miss,
thus it’s best set up remotely using MDM
software. At a minimum, IT should deploy
an auto-proxy, which handles all the lowlevel details, so users need only enter a single address.
One of the biggest holes in Wi-Fi security
— open, public hotspots — is gradually
getting filled thanks to service provider
support of the Hotspot 2.0 spec, a.k.a.
Passpoint. VonNagy says the first phase,
which uses SIM credentials on mobile
phones, should roll out soon. We expect the
technology to rapidly advance, adding the
ability for users to authenticate onto public
networks using various credentials like
OAuth, or even Google IDs, over the next
few years.
When it comes to managing and securing
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WLANs, and by extension your data, our
survey shows some holes. Surprisingly, only
64% of respondents can identify even the
most basic attributes about the devices on
their WLANs — it’s past time for the
remaining 36% to get with the program.
But this is only the simple stuff. Ideally, IT
will augment WLAN monitoring with network policy enforcement, client logging
and forensics analysis, features addressed
by wireless intrusion-prevention systems.

Figure 13

Most Important WLAN AP and Controller Features

Note: Six responses allowed
Base: 363 respondents at organizations using wireless LAN technologies
Data: InformationWeek 2013 Wireless LAN Survey of business technology professionals, December 2012

reports.informationweek.com

1%

Other

7%

Site planning tools

7%

Wireless meshing (wireless backhaul)

10%

Controller-less architecture

10%

Integrated spectrum analysis and automated channel assignment

11%

Beamforming (any implementation; static array or dynamic)

12%

Bonjour gateway (AirPlay, AirPrint support)

13%
Layer 7 firewall

Airtime fairness

13%

14%

User roles; integration with authentication system (different levels of user access)

4x4 MIMO

16%

19%
QoS (voice prioritization)

Integrated mobile VPN

21%

22%

Security policy enforcement (integration with firewall and other security services)

Usage and reporting tools

23%

23%
NAC (network access control)

Intrusion prevention (WIPS)

24%

26%
Rogue AP protection

Controller-based architecture

27%

29%

Band steering (automatically capable devices to the 5 GHz band)

Load balancing

Bandwidth management/rate limiting

Fast roaming (between APs)

30%

43%

44%

Aside from the RF specifications and options in 802.11n, WLAN controllers offer various features to improve performance, manageability, security and channel
utilization. Which of these features are most important when selecting WLAN APs and controllers?

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WIPS: Protect and Monitor
A WIPS is an independent radio frequency overlay to existing WLANs that
continuously scans the full 2.4 GHz and 5
GHz spectrum range, not just defined WiFi channels, for unauthorized devices — a
WLAN security guard in the ether, if you
will. As intruders are detected, the WIPS can
proactively block both rogue APs and endpoints. Such jamming can be accomplished in several ways, from simply issuing
so-called deauth packets, a hacker favorite
for performing denial-of-service attacks, to
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more sophisticated (and proprietary) techniques like those used by AirTight that Phanse
was unwilling to describe in any depth.
WIPS products work much like traditional intrusion-prevention systems, except on the RF
spectrum instead of a data network, and typically include the following features:
>> Interference detection and mitigation
via automatic channel reassignment
>> IPS and DoS prevention functionality
>> Rogue AP detection and prevention to
alleviate what’s sure to be an increasingly
pressing problem as more mobile devices feature the ability to set up ad hoc hotspots
using 3G/Wi-Fi tethering
>> Ability to block connections from unauthorized devices while ignoring neighbor networks on other channels — a very important
feature that could get you in trouble with the
FCC if not properly implemented
>> Client monitoring, including location
tracking, so that even if an end user can
authenticate to your WPA-protected network,
he can’t connect unless he’s using an approved device
reports.informationweek.com

2013 Wireless LAN Survey

Figure 14

Methods Used to Enroll and Provision Mobile Devices on WLAN
How do you enroll and provision mobile devices on your WLAN?

Fully automated process with devices
redirected to a provisioning portal

Ad hoc; new users call
the help desk or ask colleagues

14%
23%
13%

25%
Manual; we have a website or email
configuration instructions to new users

25%

Fully automated via mobile device
management software

Partially automated; detect new devices
and enroll via Web forms and email

Base: 363 respondents at organizations using wireless LAN technologies
Data: InformationWeek 2013 Wireless LAN Survey of 419 business technology professionals, December 2012

WIPS management software typically
includes forensics features that simplify tracking activity from specific devices based on
time and location and that can correlate traffic from specific endpoints as they roam from
AP to AP.
While these systems can tame BYOD run

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amuck, there are drawbacks. For example,
since a WIPS implementation must necessarily
run independently of a WLAN, it requires its
own set of radios. These have normally been
separate devices; however AirTight, Aruba,
Cisco and others now offer combination
AP/WIPS products that integrate a 3x3 (threeMarch 2013 19

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FAST FACT

11%

reports

antenna, three-MIMO stream) AP with software-configurable WIPS radios. AirTight
implements this as a bundled product, the ATC60, while Cisco uses a plug-in WIPS card, the
Wireless Security and Spectrum Intelligence
Module, for its new Aironet 3600 AP. Like AirTight’s product, the Aironet 3600 can scan
both Wi-Fi bands while offloading monitoring
and security services from the data radios.
Despite the benefits, as shown in Figure 13,
WIPS isn’t high on the checklist when our
respondents are shopping for new APs or
controllers. We think it should be.

2013 Wireless LAN Survey

and wireless LANs into a common client network, similar to the scheme used by most
home networks where clients on either
medium can transparently access resources
on the other. Most, 51%, still logically segregate WLANs into separate security zones and
virtual LANs, a design that certainly makes
sense for guest networks but strikes us as unnecessary with a properly secured employee

(private) WLAN. Only 13% have taken the
costly, and in our view, wasteful (barring regulatory requirements to the contrary) step of
building separate physical networks.
Wireless onramping, getting new devices
enrolled onto enterprise networks, is sadly still
largely a manual, end user-initiated process. A
depressingly high 48% of organizations using
WLAN technologies have no automated

Figure 15

WLAN Integration With Wired Infrastructure
How integrated are your wireless networks with your wired infrastructure?
2013

2011

of our respondents are
wireless-worry-free.

reports.informationweek.com

Business and Product Trends
When we asked respondents what keeps
them up at night when comparing WLANs
with wired networks, performance came out
on top by an even bigger margin (eight
points) than two years ago. Only 11% of our
respondents are wireless-worry-free.
One reason may be that our survey doesn’t
show a strong consensus on how WLANs can
best coexist with the wired infrastructure.
One-third of WLAN users have merged wired

Fully blended: Wireless and wired are fully integrated with no strong segmentation between the two

33%
35%
Logical segmentation: Wireless and wired share the physical infrastructure but are firewalled
or strongly segmented from each other (e.g., guest network, credit cardholder data network)

51%
42%
Physical segmentation: Wireless is a completely separate network

13%
18%
Don’t know

3%
5%
Base: 363 respondents in December 2012 and 242 in September 2010 at organizations using wireless LAN technologies
Data: InformationWeek Wireless LAN Survey of business technology professionals

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fully automated process, your end users and
guests no doubt thank you.
Our survey finds that organizations are responding to the need for greater wireless reliability by educating IT. Most are rolling

means of provisioning new wireless clients;
users must call the help desk or manually submit an email or Web form to get online. Hopefully they have an Ethernet cable. To the 27%
who’ve gone proactive, using some form of
Figure 16

Most Important AP Features

Note: Multiple responses allowed
Base: 363 respondents at organizations using wireless LAN technologies
Data: InformationWeek 2013 Wireless LAN Survey of business technology professionals, December 2012
reports.informationweek.com

30%

We don’t have an established hardware specification

2%

Other

2%

Passpoint

3%

TX A-MPDU (link-layer frame aggregation)

3%

WMM-PS (Wi-Fi Multimedia Extensions Power Save)

3%

Short guard interval

3%

Greenfield preamble (eliminate support for 11a/b/g devices)

6%

STBC (space-time block coding to improve range and reliability)

8%

WMM-AC (Wi-Fi Multimedia Extensions Admission Control)

9%

Three or more spatial streams

11%

HT duplicate (improve co-existence with legacy, non-11n devices)

Beamforming

11%

14%

Protected management frames

Voice-Enterprise

17%

19%

40 MHz operation in 2.4 GHz

Band steering

22%

32%
40 MHz operation in 5 GHz

Dual band (2.4 and 5 GHz operation)

56%

Which 802.11n features do you consider must-haves when purchasing APs?

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WLAN operations into existing network management groups and preparing for the
onslaught of devices and new infrastructure
elements by ramping up their WLAN training
for existing staffers. Only 32% are looking to
new technology tools, and virtually no one is
creating redundant, costly standalone wireless departments.
When evaluating new WLAN equipment, our
respondents could best be described as Toyota, not Tesla, shoppers: They’re looking for dependable, leading-edge technology, but nothing too esoteric. When asked about the most
important features when evaluating APs, items
that come standard on all new enterprise
hardware top the list; see Figure 16. Few expressed an interest in more arcane RF features
like beamforming; three- or four-stream
MIMO; or HT duplicate and greenfield preamble, both of which optimize performance in
heterogeneous 11n/11g client environments.
This is the first year we’ve presented such a list,
and we’ll be interested to see which new features vendors manage to propel into IT’s consciousness in the coming months.
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Architectural Digest
A high point of this survey is the precipitous
drop, from 32% to 18%, in the percentage of
respondents using dumb APs that are individually configured and managed. When examining the network architectures used by our
respondents, we’re encouraged that most
now actually have architectures, in contrast to
the Wild West days of slapping up consumergrade APs from the local office supply store.
When it comes to evaluating the control
plane (to use SDN-speak) features of enterprise-class WLAN hardware, there are two design choices: central controllers with thin APs
and a distributed, controller-less topology using smart APs. A bare majority of respondents
have controller-based schemes, where traffic
is passed back to central switches that make
packet-forwarding decisions. However, a
growing number are opting for controllerless
designs with distributed forwarding, where
APs do packet processing but are still managed by a central console.
Let’s face it — central WLAN controllers
meshed well with wired network designs
reports.informationweek.com

2013 Wireless LAN Survey

since, topologically anyway, they looked like
just another edge switch. Heck, often they
were just another edge switch with an add-on
WLAN module. However, they’re unlikely to
scale to the coming 11ac era of multiple
Gigabit wireless streams requiring at least
one, and perhaps two or more, Gigabit Ether-

net backhaul connections. As vonNagy points
out, passing all traffic to a wired switch will
create bottlenecks, given an effective data
rate fully capable of saturating a Gigabit
Ethernet link under real-world conditions.
Moreover, a bank of 11ac APs can overwhelm
the packet-processing capability of most con-

Figure 17

Controller-Based Vs. Autonomous System
Our current wireless gear is predominately . . .
2013

2011

A centrally managed controller-based system where each lightweight AP sends all (or, in some cases, some)
data to its controller for functions like firewalling, prioritization and forwarding

51%
45%
A centrally managed, yet controller-less system, where each AP independently processes data for functions
like firewalling, prioritization and forwarding

22%
12%
A legacy autonomous system where each access point is configured independently
and each makes all forwarding decisions

18%
32%
Don’t know

9%
11%
Base: 363 respondents in December 2012 and 242 in September 2010 at organizations using wireless LAN technologies
Data: InformationWeek Wireless LAN Survey of business technology professionals

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trollers. Forget oversubscribing.
Looking at controllers and thick APs, the features most important to our respondents deal
with how well they manage traffic. These include support for quick handoffs between

APs when roaming (especially critical when
doing voice over IP) and control over bandwidth utilization. Further down the list, garnering mention by 29%, is a feature we consider particularly important in optimizing

airtime and RF utilization: band steering,
which ensures that capable devices are automatically associated to 5 GHz channels, freeing up capacity at 2.4 GHz. Clearing the overcrowded band of faster clients is a win/win.

Figure 18

Wireless Vendors in Use

Note: Multiple responses allowed
Base: 363 respondents at organizations using wireless LAN technologies
Data: InformationWeek 2013 Wireless LAN Survey of 419 business technology professionals, December 2012
reports.informationweek.com

8%
Other

1%

Foundry (Meru OEM)

1%

Proxim

2%

Extreme

2%

Adtran/Bluesocket

2%

Xirrus

2%
Meru

ZyXel

2%

3%

Trendnet

3%

Nortel (Trapeze OEM)

3%

Enterasys/Siemens HiPath

3%

HP/Colubris

3%

Meraki

3%

Alcatel-Lucent (Aruba OEM)

4%
Ruckus

Aerohive

5%

6%

Juniper/Belden Trapeze

7%

Motorola (formerly Symbol)

9%
HP/3Com

Aruba

13%

14%
Netgear

D-Link

15%

48%
Cisco (autonomous access point system)

Cisco (controller-based system)

52%

Which wireless vendors are in use at your organization?

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The Vendor Landscape
As with so many categories of network equipment, Cisco rules the
enterprise WLAN market. About half
of our respondents use its WLAN
controllers and Aironet APs.
There’s a predictable alignment between the product criteria our
respondents most value and how
they evaluate vendors: Speed and reliability rule. In a sign that WLAN demand might be outstripping IT’s ability to cope, the two categories
showing the greatest increases —
scalability and low maintenance —
address operational flexibility and
efficiency (see Figure 12). Up-front
purchase price and brand recognition
are far down on the list; respondents
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are more concerned about getting products
that work right and are easy to expand and
manage. Now, such concern with reliability and
security would seem to play into the hands of
a network behemoth like Cisco, yet only 14%
say buying from an established vendor is important. We wonder if Cisco’s dominance can
be sustained as IT pros get a closer look at innovative, and often less-expensive, products
from scrappy WLAN specialists like Aerohive,
AirTight, Aruba, Enterasys, Ruckus and Meru.
One topic our survey didn’t broach is IPv6
support. Although v6 is primarily an issue for
the network core and interfacing with service
providers, it’s worth investigating when evaluating any new network equipment. Few IT
pros outside of academia are running internal
IPv6 networks. In fact, if they’re being honest,
most probably wish the whole thing would
go away. No such luck — it will eventually
infiltrate every network nook and cranny.
If you’re inclined to be proactive, question
WLAN vendors about their IPv6 road maps.
Mike Kouri, a product manager at Aerohive,
says most WLAN vendors support IPv6 “well
reports.informationweek.com

2013 Wireless LAN Survey

Figure 19

Plans for Running Voice Traffic Over WLAN
Does your organization run (or intend to run) voice traffic over your WLAN?

Don’t know

15%
Yes

43%

42%
No

Base: 363 respondents at organizations using wireless LAN technologies
Data: InformationWeek 2013 Wireless LAN Survey of 419 business technology professionals, December 2012

enough” to provide basic connectivity and
adds that more sophisticated features will be
incrementally added over the next couple
years. Translation: Wireless IPv6 will work, for
those rare client devices using it, just enough
to pass traffic to a core switch that can do
something intelligent with the packets. However, v6 versions of higher-level services like

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DHCP and Radius aren’t yet there. In sum, if
you need end-to-end IPv6, make it part of
your evaluation criteria.
Talk Is EAP
Network convergence is a recurring theme
as relentless improvements in Ethernet performance have rendered it capable of acting
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as both a data and storage interconnect. But
convergence isn’t just happening in the
data center; it’s also a factor at the network
edge, where the move to voice over IP has
eliminated the need for dedicated voice circuits. Among respondents with knowledge
about voice plans, VoIP has now gone wireless for about half. When evaluating equipment for wireless voice, most want support
for mobile device authentication methods
like EAP-AKA (a protocol for 3G UMTS systems) or EAP-SIM (protocol using SIM cards),
along with equipment meeting new standards for enterprise-grade voice quality and
reliability.
According to vonNagy, the Wi-Fi Alliance’s
Voice-Enterprise certification allows WLANs
to identify and prioritize voice traffic while
also enabling clients and network devices
(APs and controllers) to share information
about current network usage and available
capacity. This lets the network inform clients
about load on nearby APs so that, when
roaming, a client can make a good decision
about which AP to reassociate with. It might
reports.informationweek.com

2013 Wireless LAN Survey

Figure 20

Important Features for Support of Voice Over Wi-Fi
What features do you consider important for support of voice over Wi-Fi?

EAP types associated with voice roaming (such as EAP-AKA or EAP-SIM)

57%
Voice-Enterprise

57%
Proprietary voice-aware traffic handling

35%
WMM-AC (Wi-Fi Multimedia Extensions Admission Control)

18%
Passpoint

11%
WMM-PS (Wi-Fi Multimedia Extensions Power Save)

5%
Other

6%
Note: Multiple responses allowed
Base: 154 respondents at organizations running, or planning to run, voice traffic over WLAN
Data: InformationWeek 2013 Wireless LAN Survey of 419 business technology professionals, December 2012

not be the one with the strongest signal, but
instead the most free bandwidth or airtime.
The goal is a more efficient and reliable
handoff, something that’s particularly im portant with real-time or streaming applications like VoIP.

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4 Top Design Considerations
1. Mobile devices and airtime contention:
The demographic shift from PCs to smartphones and tablets isn’t just adding devices
and traffic, it’s having ripple effects in WLAN
design. As we first outlined in a column last fall,
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mobile devices typically have but a single antenna and sometimes utilize radios with lower
transmit power. Both compromises maximize
battery life, but at a cost in Wi-Fi performance.

Weaker radios mean that signal strength for a
smartphone may be spotty in areas where laptops don’t have a problem. Using only a single
stream instead of the two- or three-stream

Figure 21

Steps Taken to Ensure Wireless Reliability

Note: Multiple responses allowed
Base: 363 respondents in December 2012 and 242 in September 2010 at organizations using wireless LAN technologies
Data: InformationWeek Wireless LAN Survey of business technology professionals
reports.informationweek.com

19%
14%

We have no plans in this regard

3%
2%

Other

4%
5%

Create and fund a new “wireless networking” department headed
by the “wireless network manager”; this department will be tasked
with being experts in all things wireless

19%
12%

Vendor-neutral "how 802.11 works" training for the network staff

21%
19%

29%
28%

Invest in wireless-centric proactive diagnostic tools and alerting
mechanisms to give us visibility

NA

32%

Invest in integrated wired/wireless tools that enable end-to-end
diagnosis and correlated alerting

34%
29%

Vendor-specific training classes for the network staff

55%

2011

43%

Continue to support and augment our current IT network staff,
which will add wireless to their other areas of responsibility

2013

Engage the services of wireless consulting experts to get wireless up
and running with a hand off to the current staff; call them back as needed

Wireless has many moving parts and can be complex. How will you ensure it's deployed properly and continues to run reliably?

R6330313/11

MIMO found in laptops means lower data
rates and hence longer transmission time for
a given set of data. Since radio spectrum is
shared, using more airtime means fewer
clients can share the same channel before it’s
saturated. You get the picture.
While there’s no denying that single-stream
mobile devices take more airtime to transfer
the same amount of data as a two- or threestream laptop, Hemant Chaskar, VP for technology at AirTight, says his company’s realworld testing shows most WLANs aren’t
actually airtime constrained. Chaskar acknowledges that, theoretically, throughput is
reduced. But in practice, he says performance
bottlenecks are usually in the data network,
not RF spectrum. Airtime fairness can help.
This feature of many wireless controllers and
thick APs apportions connection time, not
packet frames, across multiple clients, thus
preventing slow clients from eating up the
available wireless spectrum. But it can be
complex to implement correctly. Chaskar says
a better, if more expensive, approach is overprovisioning in the form of strategically
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placed APs. “What really solves your problem
is four times the capacity,” he says. Your vendor’s bottom line is helped, too.
Adding APs is certainly the most straightforward solution to the problem of limited wireless resources, whether RF airtime or upstream bandwidth. And that’s precisely the
strategy many vendors recommend for
schools moving into the digital age: One
tablet per child equals one AP per classroom.
Of course, this is much more realistic if clients
are dual-band. The 5 GHz band makes it easier
to densely pack APs because you don’t have
to worry about co-channel interference: There
are 24 nonoverlapping channels (when using
single-wide, 20 MHz channels) versus three (at
least in the U.S.) in the 2.4 GHz band.
2. Designing for 11ac: If mobile devices are
a problem for the here and now, 11ac is an
opportunity for the future, but also one that
will instigate changes in WLAN design. Aerohive’s vonNagy expects the move to 11ac to
force a migration from controller-based to
edge-based, controllerless designs — which,
not coincidently, are exactly the type built by
reports.informationweek.com

2013 Wireless LAN Survey

Figure 22

WLAN Management Tool Capabilities
Do your WLAN management tools allow you to identify specific device types and/or vendors, operating systems or
standards (a/b/g/n) in use?

Don’t know

18%

No

18%

Yes

64%

Base: 363 respondents at organizations using wireless LAN technologies
Data: InformationWeek 2013 Wireless LAN Survey of 419 business technology professionals, December 2012

his company. Potential bias aside, vonNagy
makes a couple of compelling arguments.
First, the maximum data rate triples from 11n
to 11ac, meaning you may not have enough
switch or even cable capacity to backhaul the
added AP traffic to central controllers. Second,
the additional traffic might well overload the

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controller itself. In fact, vonNagy says that’s
almost guaranteed for oversubscribed designs, where each controller is managing
more aggregate AP traffic than its raw specs
support. It’s a fact that the increased traffic
from 11ac clients upsets the oversubscription
calculus by consuming any available conMarch 2013 27

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troller headroom. In sum, when dealing with
gigabit-per-second streams from every AP, it’s
just too inefficient to funnel and hairpin all
edge traffic to a controller, possibly only to
have it redirected back out to another AP.
3. Infrastructure management for network
(data path) and RF (signal path): As WLANs
replace wired links as the client access network
of choice, they require equivalent central management software. Our survey indicates that
many organizations have a lot of work to do in
this regard — 36% of respondents can’t even
identify the types of devices accessing their
networks (see Figure 22). Unfortunately, WLAN
management isn’t a high priority; only 29% say
they’re investing in proactive wireless diagnostic tools and alerting mechanisms to improve
reliability. Fortunately for cash- and expertisestrapped IT departments, many wireless vendors, notably Aerohive, AirTight, Cisco via Meraki and D-Link via CloudCommand, now
feature cloud-based management consoles
that allow central administration of wireless devices across multiple locations.
But it’s not enough to just manage the netreports.informationweek.com

2013 Wireless LAN Survey

work layer. Reliable WLANs also require visibility into and control of the RF spectrum. Berenbaum says the explosion in the number and
variety of wireless endpoints creates more opportunities for misbehaving or misconfigured
devices to affect the whole network. Likewise,
with every smartphone a potential Wi-Fi
hotspot, the opportunities for “spectrum polFigure 23

lution” are greater than ever. The answer is
gaining the ability to detect and respond to
airtime bottlenecks while monitoring data
traffic to identify heavy users — like someone
streaming Netflix while everyone else is trying
to access email and the corporate SharePoint
portal. Many WLAN traffic problems can be
alleviated by wise use of capacity and priori-

Strategy for Handling Growth in WLAN Use
What is your strategy for dealing with increasing WLAN usage?

Adding access points to locations with high usage

68%
Rearchitecting with higher-capacity hardware (AP arrays, new controllers)

51%
Moving newer devices to 5 GHz band

28%
Adding parallel networks

16%
Other

2%
None; our existing infrastructure is adequate

11%
Note: Multiple responses allowed
Base: 308 respondents at organizations experiencing an increase of wireless traffic over the past year
Data: InformationWeek 2013 Wireless LAN Survey of 419 business technology professionals, December 2012

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tizing valid business applications.
4. Client management: MDM supplements
but does not replace WLAN management platforms and security products like WIPS. AirTight’s Phanse says his customers want better
integration between their WIPS and MDM software, something the company has made a priority and expects to deliver later this year. The
goal is the ability to pull information about
registered users from MDM servers to automatically build and update a device whitelist
within the WIPS system, which would be configured to block all nonregistered clients. In
this scenario, unknown devices would be forwarded to a captive sign-in portal, and once
registered in the MDM system, immediately incorporated into the WIPS policy whitelist and
allowed to access the network. It’s a compelling vision and one we expect multiple vendors to address in the coming year.
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Conclusions and Recommendations
Wireless networks aren’t just the client-access mechanism of choice, but often of necessity as fewer of the devices employees use

2013 Wireless LAN Survey

every day even have wired ports. To properly
manage this transition, IT teams must apply
the same level of effort, types of software
tools, and staffing focus and training as we
have with wired network administration. Here
are a few tips on preparing for the all-wireless
future.
1. Budget for increased mobile use and
802.11ac: Almost nine out of 10 respondents
use WLAN technologies as an access method
for end users. Next time we run this survey, we
expect an even stronger result. Plan and allocate funds for higher-density AP deployments; distributed, controllerless designs; and
an aggressive migration to 5 GHz. With 11ac
on the horizon, consider upgradeable hardware in the near term to get a bit of investment protection, and actively evaluate 11ac
products as they arrive later this year. Several
APs, including Cisco’s Aironet 3600 Series and
Xirrus’ entire product line, have modular designs that allow radios to be upgraded.
2. Reassess network-use policies: More
personal endpoints equal more likelihood of
employees accessing nonwork sites. Many,

like streaming music or movie services, can be
bandwidth hogs. While we don’t advocate allwork, no-play policies, wireless capacity is a
scarce resource in many organizations, so it
must be used judiciously. This is best done
through policies and training, not technology.
Berenbaum advises starting with rules about
streaming media sites that consume a lot of
bandwidth but aren’t business-related. This
requires a nuanced approach that relies on
employees’ cooperation and judgment. Also,
look for APs with built-in quality-of-service
and WIPS features that can prioritize traffic
categories like voice and block unauthorized
APs and clients that could devour your spectrum. But beware: WIPS can’t be hastily implemented; poorly designed setups can block legitimate traffic from neighbor networks.
3. Consider cloud-based management,
configuration and security services: As with
so many software categories, SaaS is an attractive option for WLAN management, particularly for small and midsize businesses and educational institutions that may be short on IT
resources; businesses subject to PCI; or organMarch 2013 29

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izations deploying wireless across many locations, like branch offices or retail storefronts.
Several WLAN vendors, including Aerohive,
AirTight, Cisco Meraki and D-Link offer cloudbased administration consoles that can
greatly simplify WLAN deployment. We discuss the finer points of cloud-based WLAN
management in this Buyer’s Guide.
4. Monitor pending FCC rulings opening
up new 5 GHz spectrum: At CES, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced plans to
release up to 195 MHz of spectrum in the unlicensed 5 GHz band, a move that would expand capacity by 35%, or roughly four 40
MHz channels. According to vonNagy, depending on how the agency ends up specifying spectrum-sharing requirements, the
new frequencies could be usable by existing
DFS (dynamic frequency selection) schemes
[PDF] and thus be made available merely by
a firmware update. Should the agency require more stringent interference controls,
new hardware will be required. A final FCC
ruling is expected this spring, in plenty of
time to incorporate into new 11ac hardware.
reports.informationweek.com

2013 Wireless LAN Survey

5. Look for creative new ways of using
wireless devices to deliver ROI: Most smartphones and many tablets have GPS chips providing location information. While these are
great for maps and finding nearby restaurants, they can also be used for enterprise applications that formerly required dedicated location sensors. Berenbaum is seeing increased
interest in using GPS or Wi-Fi positioning systems to track equipment or dispatch repair
personnel. Alternatively, in retailing, customers are now trackable: They’re constantly
sending out Wi-Fi beacons, meaning software
can map how people move about a store and
measure how long they stand in line or
browse various departments. Implementing
such systems does require planning, not only
to add the back-end intelligence to monitor
movement and trends in specific areas but to
address legitimate privacy concerns. Consider
anonymizing the data so that MAC addresses
or UUIDs are not persistently stored or tied to
specific customer records.

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APPENDIX

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2013 Wireless LAN Survey

Figure 24

Job Title
Which of the following best describes your job title?

Other
Line-of-business management

Consultant

Non-IT executive management (C-level/VP)

2%2% 6%
3%

IT executive management (C-level/VP)

10%

IT director/manager

37%

40%

IT/IS staff

Data: InformationWeek 2013 Wireless LAN Survey of 419 business technology professionals, December 2012

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March 2013 31

reports.informationweek.com

4%

7%

4%

Data: InformationWeek 2013 Wireless LAN Survey of 419 business technology professionals, December 2012

Other

Utilities

2%

4%

Telecommunications/ISPs

2%

Retail/e-commerce

Nonprofit

3%

Media/entertainment

Manufacturing/industrial, noncomputer

IT vendors

Healthcare/medical

Government

Financial services

2%

5%

10%

12%

14%

13%

16%

Table of Contents

Electronics

Education

Consulting and business services

2%

Construction/engineering

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2013 Wireless LAN Survey

Figure 25
What is your organization’s primary industry?

Industry

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2013 Wireless LAN Survey

Figure 26

Revenue
Which of the following dollar ranges includes the annual revenue of your entire organization?

Less than $6 million

Don’t know/decline to say

1

8%

12%

$6 million to $49.9 million

Government/nonprofit

17%

13%

$50 million to $99.9 million

9%

12%
$5 billion or more

10%
$1 billion to $4.9 billion
$500 million to $999.9 million

14%
5%

$100 million to $499.9 million

Data: InformationWeek 2013 Wireless LAN Survey of 419 business technology professionals, December 2012

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Figure 27

Company Size
Approximately how many employees are in your organization?

Fewer than 50

1

50-99
10,000 or more

3%4%
21%
100-499

28%
13%
5,000-9,999

20%
1,000-4,999

11%
500-999

Data: InformationWeek 2013 Wireless LAN Survey of 419 business technology professionals, December 2012

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