As I sit here, using my laptop to write this article, several things work silently in the background, making sure that I have access to information I need. The single-most important technology in this case is the wireless network—WiFi for the initiated—an 802.11b-based network that lets me stay connected to my LAN and the Internet no matter where I am on the premises.

Which, in this case, is my garden, where I write this, while using an Instant Messenger to stay in touch with DQ’s editors, keeping an eye on incoming email, and browsing the Web for background information. Two years ago, this would have sounded like a dream. Today, this isn’t just stark reality—it is commodity reality.

The solution & the commodity
When I first decided to look into a wireless network early this year, I did so with the usual misconceptions—probably expensive, hard to justify, not really available in India, etc.

What I found was an eye-opener.
There are two ways of approaching setting up a wireless network today—and they are really at opposite ends of the cost and benefits spectrum.

WiFi-enabling a conference room today is even cheaper and quicker than extending a regular LAN. Here’s all that you need

ACCESS POINT: The 54 Mbps 802.11g standard is the way to go. This DWL-2000AP will be available in July for Rs 11,900. Until then, D-Link’s 802.11b (11 Mbps) device, DWL-900AP+, is Rs 8,250. Just plug it into your network, configure it in a few minutes, and your wireless network is up and running. PC CARD: You need one for each laptop that is not already WiFi enabled (the new Centrinos already are—Samsung’s X10, IBM’s X31 and T40, etc). D-Link’s DWL-G650 (802.11g) will cost around Rs 5,950 (July); for now, the DWL-650+ (802.11b) is Rs 4,650. Just plug it into your XP laptop, install the driver if you’re prompted to, and you’re all set. PCI CARD: In case you want to wireless enable some desktop PCs as well, you need one of these: Rs 6,300 for this 802.11g card. Sources of low-cost WiFi product vendors in India include D-Link, SMC, and others. While Cisco has higher-end enterprise products with correspondingly higher pricetags, its recent acquisition of Linksys (whose products are also available in India) should help it widen its product range Cheap WiFi products and emerging hotspots are driving an explosion in laptop usage and sales worldwide

The solution approach: Here, you ask a vendor to quote for a solution that includes components, setup costs and even maintenance. The rationale, as presented by most vendors, is that they have to do a site survey, design the system, implement it, tune the components, take into account expansion, etc. Sticker shock is an inevitable result of this approach, and many a decision maker will decide to shelve the whole thing at that stage. And if the price of the solution doesn’t scare you away, the implied complexity of the setup will.

The commodity approach: Here, you buy products off the shelf, and ask your IS person to set it up (or do it yourself). This is cheap, and surprisingly quick when you’re not doing something ambitious like a campus-wide wireless network. Very clearly, the two approaches are radically different, and I’d be lying that the second approach is always better than the first. However, it does give a new perspective to things – that there are feasible alternatives.

Which route do I take?
Costs aside, consider what you are trying to achieve with wireless. Here, I’ll look at the quickest start-up possible—where you are not putting in an extensive wireless network or replacing an existing wired network, or bridging two networks in different buildings.

We’ll assume you simply want to give wireless access in a few places in your office, such as the conference room. If all you want to do is enable executives with wireless Internet (Web/mail/IM) access via your existing LAN (which is connected to the Internet), you can do this with commodity wireless equipment—cheap and available products off the shelf.

If you are looking at heavier things like file and print, and database replications, you should need to look at a professionally designed solution.

There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?
This is where I could start talking about the benefits of Wireless. But I won’t. Instead, let me illustrate how simple it is to get a wireless network going, and what the immediate results are.

I will look at two cases—both of my own stable: my home-office setup, where my family and I are the only users, and my office, where 10 users use an existing wired LAN, and I needed to extend it.

The home office setup
OK, this was so simple my ears went red. I checked the market for prices, and then picked up a low cost Wireless Internet Gateway Router (less than Rs 10,000, today). When it was delivered, I unpacked it, plugged it in, and switched it on.

Then I had a look at what connections it had. I couldn’t really go wrong—one said "WAN" (i.e. the Internet), the other said "PC/LAN". A supplied cable was plugged into the PC/LAN port, and the other end went into my daughter’s PC’s LAN card. Then I plugged in my ISP’s cable into the WAN port.

OK, at this point I did have to refer to the manual to find out what to do next. No software needed to be installed—I just had to point my browser at an address, which I did. Voila, up came a configuration wizard, which asked me some very simple questions—I just clicked my way through accepting the defaults. Then I switched on my notebook (which has a built-in wireless card, as some of the newer notebooks do).

And I was connected wirelessly, and was able to browse the Internet, check my mail, and chat with my friends, gloating about my "achievement". That was really all it took. The whole process took about 5 minutes. It took longer to arrange a chair, table and some iced tea in the garden.

Sure, there is fine-tuning you can do (secure the network, for example) but to get me going, this was all it took. A typical SOHO setup does not require much in terms of bandwidth. The typical wireless network runs at 11 Mbps (that’s mega BITS per second), being the most common wireless standard (802.11b) until yesterday. Today, the recently blessed 802.11g standard is the hot item on the market at 54 Mbps.

Consider that in most cases, your cable/DSL Internet connection isn’t going to be much faster than 64 or 128 kbps, 11 Mbps should see you through for years to come.

It is rare that I would have to share files with my daughter’s home PC, but if I do want to do so, I can. The setup I have described services my connectivity needs anywhere in the compound and anywhere in the building (ground floor, first floor and basement).

The office setup
My office has ten users using a variety of network resources, which include file and print, Internet access, database queries, remote installs, etc. The office network is a 100-Mbps Ethernet switched network. The Internet connectivity (a very functional BSNL DIAS connection) plugs into a gateway server that also runs the firewall, and makes available Internet connectivity to everyone on the LAN.

My need was to add wireless functionality to the LAN so that I could move around with my notebook for meetings, and for visiting clients to be able to access the Internet from anywhere in the office. While file and print functionality was an occasional need, my bandwidth requirements were limited. The office isn’t very big, so I decided to emulate my home setup. The only difference was really that I didn’t need the functionality of a router and DHCP server, since my LAN already provided all these. In short, I just needed an Access Point that bridged the wireless network with the wired office LAN.

So I checked the market for available Access Points without router functionality, and was in for a bit of a shock—prices started at Rs 25,000 and went up from there! I felt I was being subjected to a rip-off—my wireless router at home with far more functionality was priced almost half of what I was being offered here. It turns out that there is a difference, though a subtle one.

These "enterprise access points" can handle a lot more connections and traffic than the SOHO-style routers.

But that was not really something I needed in my small office, where I already have full Internet access functionality on my LAN. So I just picked up another wireless router, turned off all the router and DHCP functionality (which turned it into an Access Point without Internet capabilities), and plugged it into the LAN’s switch. Seconds later, my notebook picked up an IP address from the server wirelessly, and I was on, browsing the Intranet and Internet, collecting my email, conferring with my colleagues using Instant Messengers, etc. Any visitor to the office is given a temporary access key/account, and they are on in a minute as well.

The client side of things
Wireless networks are a boon for mobile users, and recognizing this, most new notebooks coming out in the market have wireless connectivity built into the machine.

If you are buying a new notebook, you may want to specify that you want built-in WiFi connectivity, saving you the trouble of buying and maintaining a separate PCMCIA wireless network card. Newer notebooks offer 802.11g wireless functionality (see "The alphabet soup", below), which is preferable, so if you have a choice, go for 802.11g.

If you need to add wireless connectivity to an existing notebook, options are plenty, and prices are falling. A typical PCMCIA wireless network card costs under Rs 5,000 for 802.11b and under Rs 6,000 for 802.11g. If you do want to wireless-enable a desktop, then you need to plug in a PCI card (Rs 6,000 to 11,000).

The alphabet soup
Throughout the article I have thrown around terms like 802.11b, 802.11g, etc. A likely question you would have is—which one is the right one for me? The answer is so simple that you’ll laugh—you may not really have a choice. 802.11b was the wireless standard for several years. Running at 11 Mbps shared bandwidth (this means that all users attached to the wireless access point/router will share a total of 11 Mbps) in the free-to-use 2.4 GHz frequency range, it provides nice, stable connectivity, and is great for Internet connectivity and low-volume connectivity, or when you have a few users on one network.

There’s a faster standard for the workplace, 802.11a. But it’s not approved for use without a special license in India, and it doesn’t work with most 802.11b equipment. Today, the 802.11g standard is the way to go. It’s been ratified in June 2003 by the IEEE, and at 54 Mbps over 2.4 GHz, and it can support both 802.11b (11 Mbps) and 802.11g (54 Mbps) clients.

(Earlier 802.11g products were based on a "draft standard", and they can usually be software-upgraded to the final standard, which isn’t very different from the draft).

Thus, 802.11g products are fast, compatible, and are getting cheaper. Dlink expects to 802.11g access points to sell for under Rs 11,900 when they come in, mid-July. This is as against Rs 8,250 for its enhanced 802.11b device (11 Mbps devices that can go up to 22 Mbps with other such Dlink "b-plus" devices).

The same vendor sells 802.11b PC cards (for laptops) at Rs 4,650, and expects the 802.11g versions to sell for around Rs 5,920 by end-July. If you find the "B" devices cheaper than a "G" device by at least 30%, then by all means go for it. If not, go for the "G" products. Some vendors will begin phasing out "B" products, and may sell them cheap.

What did you leave out?
Lots. I skimmed over security, for example. Wireless networks are less secure than wired networks, but how badly you are affected by this depends on your application.

If you are only using the wireless network to access the Internet, don’t bother too much about this—personal firewalls are good enough, along with "access control" lists to dissuade casual freeloaders from stealing your bandwidth. If the wireless network allows access to your corporate network, you may want to give this some more thought. Securing the corporate wireless network is not trivial, but network administrators are getting familiar with this area, and using VPNs, routing and firewalls. And that’s another story.

I have assumed cable or DSL kind of connectivity to the Internet, not modem-based dialup connectivity, throughout this article. If you do happen to use dial-up, you would probably enable Internet Connection Sharing ICS) on your PC, and allow wireless clients to share the connection via an access point or peer-to-peer wireless connection, rather than using a dedicated router.

Winding up
Setting up a wireless network these days is no black art—if you can use a PC, you can set up a little wireless network. As your needs become more complex, you may need to plan a bit more and maybe get in some professionals to set things up for you, but if you have an existing network team in your organization, handling an existing wired network, you really do not have to.

And costs are way down. I expect that within months, you should be able to get a wireless router for Rs 5,000 to 8,000 — the cost of a small color printer, and the cost of wireless network cards will drop to around Rs 2,000 – if you need them at all, given that most notebooks will already have them built-in. This is especially true for all the new Centrino based notebooks, which will come with WiFi connectivity built-in (currently 802.11b based).

Providing wireless connectivity to executives in their offices and conference rooms will instantly raise productivity, and they will know whom to thank. Even a simple access point plugged into the wall-mounted wired socket of your LAN in a conference room would instantly show results.

I hope that this article helped to demystify the concept of wireless networking, and to encourage you to give it a try, because it is really affordable, easy to set up, and definitely useful.

Atul Chitnis
The author is CTO of Exocore Consulting, Bangalore. (Research/sidebars by Yograj Varma)

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