The Difference Between Knowing The Path And Walking The Path

Sorry I have been away for so long. I wrote a little extra this time around. Think of this blog as super-sized without the health risk. An extended collection of literary prose, best if read aloud to yourself,  for maximum aural pleasure. Too much? Ok, just read on..

Way back when, I wrote my very first blog on Wireless-N. I kind of did it as a joke at first. All my friends kept asking me why their wireless stuff never seemed to reach the speeds that are stamped on the box. As you can imagine, repeating the same phrase of "it's complicated" got me nowhere. Instead, I said "hey, go to this link and read about it." Alas, people went from asking to thanking. Yet, as they say, the book didn't end with that chapter. The same question has come back around, but this time with a vengeance.

 

He's on his final hole. He's about 455 yards away, he's gonna hit about a 2 iron I think   
- Carl Spackler

Seems that after working well for some time, everyone's wireless networks are starting to crap out. I know you were told by some computer jock that you needed to go out and buy the latest, fastest wireless-N router. And he also convinced you to make sure that all of your gear was able to "speak" wireless-N. So you went on this bender. New laptops, cameras, tablets…all running wireless-N. You put it all together, turn it all on, and stood back, eagerly anticipating the singing of angels. At that moment, one which you mentally equate to climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, you ascend to the highest point in your den…the arm of your sofa. You invite your family to assemble at your feet and proclaim that you are the undisputed wireless king. With and outstretched arm, you touch the screen and begin to stream the Super Bowl to your iPAD. Sure of your success, you prepare to beat your chest when suddenly, from the corner of your eye, you notice that  the player running down the field appears in what can best be described as a jerky slow motion; like that video you see on the surveillance camera in a convenient store as some tanked up bozo drives through the front door looking to buy more Schlitz Malt Liquor. Weak wireless signal? How can this be? For the love of God, I am sitting right under the damn thing. Sigh. My digital friends, time to pull up a chair, grab your favorite cold one, and introduce you to my friend wireless…unified wireless. 

  

Live And Let Die

When you were young and your wireless was an open network. You used to say live and let live. You know you did. But in this ever changing world in which we live in, makes you give in and cry…especially when the wireless gets screwed up thanks to someone making microwave popcorn. You know the rest right? Oh wireless; why did you work so well before and now you let me down? Well, when wireless started out, not everyone had it. And there were just a handful of devices actually using it. That was so five years ago. Now, wireless is everywhere…along with laptops, tablets, smartphones, even thermostats...all using wireless.

With wireless everywhere, the world has become rather noisy. Not to you of course. But for your devices. See your devices "hear" every bit of wireless gibberish that flies through the air, whether it is for them or not. Take a moment and think about that. Imagine if you spent your days listening to everyone's conversations all the time. And if that wasn't enough, having to pay careful attention to listen to what matters to you and tune out the rest (ok, fill in your favorite spouse joke here). Bet you are glad you aren't a laptop or tablet. You'd never have any peace (second spouse joke can be inserted here).  Perhaps this example will help things along. Put yourself in a ballroom with say a few hundred people. You are supposed to meet a friend. You see him and try to get his attention by yelling across this really noisy room. And assume for the moment you don't have a cellphone so texting isn't an option. Nice try.  Anyway, the yelling isn't working so you start to make your way across the room, now adding the well-known SOS arm waiving to your already ineffective yelling. Yes, you are now "that idiot" in the room. As you get close enough for him to hear you, Van Halen  hits the stage, belting out Panama.  You push your way through the crowd, finally arriving at your friend's side. Sure you can begin to talk to each other, however, it is you versus David Lee Roth. And you know who will win.  Then, from the top of the room, the Cone of Silence drops down (ah, GetSmart). Now you can have a secure conversation, at a normal level, while surrounded by other people. Ok, so maybe the last part is a bit of movie magic but you get the idea. The ballroom is the world, and you are the wireless device. When you consider how noisy the wireless room (or world) has become, it is amazing that devices can communicate with each other at all.

Listen What The Man Says

We've now had to teach our devices to listen more carefully. And at the same time, we've taught them how to speak to one another directly instead of screaming across a room and hoping the other device will answer. Yea, we can't have everyone eavesdropping on conversations like first generation wireless. Ok, so all of this now works pretty well. You can plop down in your office and safely use your laptop on the company's secured wireless network. And you can do so with  fast speed. Life is good…until you decided to become adventurous and move ten feet in either direction. Ugh. Now you're out of the sweet spot. Connection signal drops like Janet Jackson's wardrobe. This has to be fixed, but how? Let's choose the brute force method: add a bunch of additional access points and sprinkling them all over the office, creating this cozy blanket of wireless signal. Perhaps an access point in every room.  Not quite that easy. Simply adding access points, especially close to each other, actually makes things worse. Worse you say? See, those wireless access points you buy from the likes of Best Buy and Office Depot are quite "dumb." That is, you turn them on and they start chatting like crazy, unaware they are stepping all over the other access point a mere 20 feet away. If they were smart, they would adjust themselves and behave differently. Instead, they drown out one another in a continuous tidal wave of wireless signal. Meanwhile, your laptop becomes horribly confused. It doesn't know which access point to talk to. Sure it tries to connect to the strongest one. However, the other ones are just strong enough to make the laptop question its connection decision, leaping from access point to access point in an endless game of monkey in the middle.  Kind of like being in a classroom of kids where the teacher asks who wants ice cream and every kid jumps up and down waiving their hand yelling "pick me pick me." Same thing. And while everyone loves a good game (and ice cream for that matter) this one is no fun since you can't stay connected to the Internet for more than ten seconds at a time. Brutal.  I just heard a bunch of readers just say, "wholly crap…that happens to me all the time. Why didn't that punk at Best Buy tell me this would happen?"

Maybe I'm Amazed

I will spare you from all the technical reasons behind the failure of your so-called wireless blanket, albeit in your home or office. Don't feel bad. Look, as a firm, we've built a lot of wireless networks, using different manufacturers and technologies. Schools, doctor's offices, creative departments…you name it. I can tell you without a doubt that the wireless networks we roll out these days are engineered solution, deeply rooted in math. Yes, math. Math tells us how strong signal will be as it passes through walls. It also tells us how access points stacked closely together will likely behave. It tells us we need more access points than we did before (and why). Most important, math provides predictable results. Wireless continues to mature. And like any other technology, that maturity is dependent on three things: deployment, use, and of course math. Man wouldn't it be great if our wireless networks worked more like their cellular cousins? Effortless roaming, high speed data. I'm about to make your day and give you good reason to rip out your old office wireless network.

Unified Wireless is all about a continuous and reliable wireless experience. So what does that mean? Well, for one, it means that access points are smarter and receive instructions from a boss device called a wireless controller.  Part schoolyard monitor and the other part air traffic control tower, this device spends its days and nights watching and adjusting your wireless network. A wireless controller uses a sort of "radar" to measure the number of "planes" that are flying around the sky, keeping them properly spaced apart. It also knows which airplanes are taking off and landing, and which ones are having mechanical issues. It knows if the runway is too risky to use. It knows if someone has jumped the fence and is illegally running around on the runway or trying to take off without permission. And, most important, it knows how many planes each air traffic controller can handle at one time. So what happens when you set one of these babies loose in your office? Well for one, no more monkey in the middle. You can walk from your cubicle to the breakroom, without missing a second of the season two Homeland finale streaming to your Galaxy S3 phone (during lunch of course). Meanwhile, the other access points, aware of what you are up to, adjust themselves so your co-workers can remain wirelessly connected. Get the idea?

Ever have guests come over and need Internet access? Sure you have. They ask if you have wireless. Of course you do. But you are reluctant to give them the passphrase. And you should be. They are guests and not employees. Do I have to put up a separate wireless network (and access points) for my guests? Not with a wireless controller on the scene. A few clicks of the mouse and you have a guest wireless network that is safe to use and isolated from your servers and data. Moreover, you can control where people are allowed to go when they use it.  Want more? Ok, think about a school. Teachers and students both use wireless. But their needs are clearly not the same. A wireless controller knows the difference, down to the device, and can dynamically give them permission to (or block them from) accessing different systems including the Internet. Now that you have control, the possibilities are really endless.

Wireless controllers are most effective when paired up with smarter access points (aka thin APs). Smart access points are not so cost-prohibitive. While they are not as inexpensive as consumer-level access point, they are very much on par with business-class ones. By smarter, I don't just mean that they listen to a wireless controller. Take the AeroHive system for instance. I happen to think these guys have it going on. Their latest generation of access points have multiple radios. More radios means a single access point can handle more devices at one time. They can also be used for two different networks (remember my guest example a few sentences ago) at the same time. And their access points can actually talk direct to each other and decide what to do among themselves. So the magic here is smart access points plus wireless controllers equals an intelligent, overlapping blanket (or mesh) of access points that can be adjusted based on various conditions. It is called, you guessed it, a mesh network. The cellular network is a good example of a mesh network. Mesh networks by their definition are self-healing. That means they can take a hit and automagically compensate. Almost like autopilot, isn't it? When a cell tower goes down, you don't lose cellular service. Instead the other towers which are closest to the one that failed, are instructed to boost their power to "fill in" for the gap left from the offline one. Wireless controller began their lives as expensive pieces of hardware. To be frank, they were really overpriced and many people and business didn't take notice. Nor did they really understand the need. A few years back, some companies had a stroke of brilliance: offer wireless controllers as a cloud service. Now instead of plunking down thousands of dollars for another piece of hardware, you can pay a small monthly fee and have a wireless controller that is always up-to-date and accessible from virtually anywhere. 

Take It Away

Here is where the magic really happens. I'll give you two examples. Say you have a company with multiple locations, each with its own wireless network. Used to be you needed a wireless controller at each location. And managing each individual wireless network was the very definition of insanity. Not any longer. A single, Internet-based controller plus thin access points, and you pull all of those sites together, making management a breeze. Sounds good doesn't it?  Try this. You have multiple buildings at the same physical location. Think of a hospital, a school campus, or a scrap metal yard. You need wireless in each building. Trouble is, these buildings were built at different times and remain unconnected. Sure they have power and Internet; they just aren't connected to each other. And burying cable between them is both challenging and very expensive. What do you do?  Like the previous example, the cloud-controller can step in and pull all the wireless devices together into one place. And here is the bonus: you can also link the buildings together wirelessly, using the very same wireless access points...all at the same time. How cool is that? This is what unified wireless is all about. And I am just scratching the surface.

Everyone seems to have the same sob stories about their wireless networks. They used to work so well. Everything is good until someone turns on the microwave in the break room. It worked fine until  the doctor above me started to X-ray people. If I stand on my desk and hold my laptop above my head, while touching my nose, I get good signal. And the list goes on and on. Think about yourself for a moment. How much wireless stuff do you have? There are the obvious: phones, laptops, tablets. Most of you have multiples, right? What about wireless cameras, thermostats and televisions? Then there is your alarm system. Probably wireless as most alarm companies don't make it a habit of drilling into window sills and door jambs any longer. Oh, don't forget the cellular backup for your alarm. Hmmm, what else here? How about speakers and portable home phones (if you still have one of these). What about baby monitors, power and water meters, and of course the wireless meat probe that you bought from Brookstone. You know the one that you stick into that steak on the grill, so you can monitor the temperature without sitting outside in the freezing cold (or searing heat depending on where you live). Nope, we're not done yet. That's just your stuff. Now we have to think about your neighbors with all there wireless stuff. Why? Because it interferes with your stuff.  And it goes without saying, the bigger your house (and the more people living in it), the more wireless stuff (as George Carlin so precisely confirms in the video clip above).  Jeez. Now, spin your head back down on the swivel that is your neck, take a breath and think about your office building. You're surrounded…literally. From seven until five it is a flash mob of devices, without choreography and synchronization. Basically a caffeinated wireless nightmare. Hey, when was the last time you went into any building, restaurant, airport, or hotel and didn't have at least a half-dozen wireless networks?

We Can Work It Out

I can end the madness. I can make the noise stop. I give you the gift of unified wireless. Time to get rid of all of those disparate access points in your office; time to make your wireless network more dependable; time to make it more manageable. With certainty, I can tell you these systems do work, and work well. Money well spent. Or, you can perpetuate the madness and keep buying those cheap, consumer-level access points. While you're buying them, Amazon sells aluminum foil hats and CB antennas. If you pair them together with a chin strap, you will have yourself a home-grown solution that may work a bit better. And it will likely be less expensive than a smart AP. Yes, you will experience a wireless lifestyle change, but not exactly the one I had in mind. Being outside in a thunderstorm? Yea, not a good idea. Walking through doors will also be a bit of a challenge. You are guaranteed to arouse suspicion and be introduced to a whole new group of...er...friends. So, if you seek a different kind of companionship, complete with long conversations about how the moon landings were a hoax and the black helicopters circling overhead are full of agents named Smith, then don your cap and grab your laptop. Otherwise, you should take this new found knowledge and walk down the road of unified wireless. Oh, and about the aluminum foil. Place it on a cookie sheet and bake some chocolate chip cookies. Because cookies just make everything better, including your wireless. Trust me on this :)