Ready to add wireless internet access to your employees' desktops?

Just the thought could make your tech guys break out in a cold sweat. Although the benefits may not seem totally apparant now, incorporating a "mobile office" within your organization could offer productivity gains that are certainly worth the time and expense.

Of course, some companies such as FedEx, UPS, and other companies interested in a highly efficient and automated sales force have been on the cutting edge by offering their employees wireless access for some time.

Is it time for YOUR company to get with the program? If so, the following step-by-step process should help you choose the right options.

3 Key Elements to Consider For Your Mobile Office

Businesses who have considered expanding the computing power in their employee's desktop computers, purses or pockets will have several technology choices to make. Incorporating mobility with existing IT infrastructure is not an easy task. There are basic, and not so basic issues to deal with. Let's start with the basics first...

Step 1: Choose Your Platform: Hardware and Software

In many ways, choosing the device on which your employees will be "connected" is the most simple step of all. Just like choosing a PC operating system, a mobile device is a "platform" choice. Your choice of platform for both hardware and software will be dependent on the tasks required and the applications needed to complete them.

For PDA devices, Windows CE and Palm OS are by far the most prominent operating systems. Both run on various powerful handheld units and offer a wide variety of wireless connectivity.

For many new and powerful cell-phone devices, two-way pagers, and combination PDA/cell phones, Java has become a more pervasive cross-platform standard. Two-way pagers such as the popular RIM BlackBerry 950 and cell phones such as the Motorola i85s were early Java-capable devices.

And there's always the trusty laptop with wireless connectivity. If you don't mind extra weight and size, the laptop is the obvious and most powerful choice. Whichever hardware and software platform you choose, you will need to download data regularly to your office PC or network to insure no important data is lost to cyberspace.

Step 2: Choose a Communications Technology

When deciding on a communications service, you have a few choices. For businesses, it's smart to choose one of the widely available and supported technologies such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi (short for Wireless Fidelity), or a couple of possible cellular data services.

Bluetooth is a very short-range (up to 10 meters) wireless standard that is widely supported. Because of its limited range, Bluetooth is most commonly used for wireless cell-phone headsets and as a cable replacement for PC peripherals. Security is good and it can usually be deployed with little infrastructure changes.

Bluetooth does not use IP addressing in its native protocol. This fact, and its short range make is potentially more secure from "hijackers". (More on security in a minute)
For more reach, consider wireless LANs or "Wi-Fi" technology, also known as the 802.11 family of standards. The most common is 802.11b, which describes a wireless networking system that transmits data at speeds of up to 11 Mbps and over distances of up to 300 feet.

Wi-Fi has become popular for both home and business. More and more "hotspots" such as coffee shops, cafes and even bars and brew houses are incorporating cheap or free wireless internet as an attractive enticement to the corporate set who want to work in a relaxed environment.

If roaming capability is needed over great distances, cellular data networks will do it. Packet-data cellular networks allow cell phones, PDAs, and the new combination PDA/cellular devices to access back-end systems from practically any urban location.

In the past, bandwidth limitations and poor user interfaces have limited the ability of these devices to access anything other than small amounts of text. These problems are being solved however. High-resolution color displays and better operating-system support have turned conventional cell phones into devices capable of accessing and displaying a wider range of multimedia data.

Step 3: Addressing the Security Concerns

Security concerns might be the single and most predominate reason for many companies not currently employing wireless access for its employees. While entrances to conventional wired LANs can be blocked by deploying firewalls and taking other measures at specific locations, wireless LANs, based on Wi-Fi, offer access to anyone who can get physically close enough to the access point.
Wi-Fi access points, the boxes that sit between wireless users and a wired LAN, broadcast to the world, making them easy to locate. With a range of 100 to 500 feet, access points often give workers network access in several adjacent rooms of an office. Unfortunately, that sometimes extends to the parking lot and street out front as well.

In the past few years, more than a few network hardware vendors have come up with proprietary solutions for the lack of security in the 802.11b standard. For tips on how to secure your Wi-Fi LAN, refer to the Tips and Strategies section of this newsletter. (look left!)

Wireless Access is Here to Stay

As employees continue to demand wireless connectivity for convenience and productivitiy reasons, telecom and technology managers will be forced to deal with these issues if they haven't already. Wireless devices will very soon be a major player within virtually every corporate IT infrastructure. Always consider the "big picture" when designing your company's wireless strategies.

A hodge podge of devices and competing standards used throughout different departments within your company could result in costly upgrades down the road.

or simply...