How to sell Wireless -- Part 1

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Few would doubt the benefits of installing a wireless network. You don't have to rip up your customer's floors and tear out miles of cabling spaghetti for one thing, while prices have dropped dramatically in recent years.

Yet many resellers have had a mixed reaction from their customer base, and some have seen interest waning after an initial flurry of activity.

Even so, wireless networking solutions are selling at a decent rate and further developments, in particular the roll-out of hotspots and the wireless-enabling of mobile workers with the Centrino processor and Windows XP, promise to expand the market even further.

Jamie Ireland, a senior ICT advisor at reseller Parity Computers ICT, which focuses on SMEs, believes that about three in 10 customers have an active interest in wireless networks.

Wireless is very popular in education, because the network can be moved around easily, and in commercial environments that are difficult to cable, or where two nearby buildings need to be linked but cabling will be too expensive.

Professional businesses, such as solicitors, like to use wireless networking with their mobile computers to synchronise information.

"I wouldn't say it's absolutely red-hot but, if there is a genuine business case to use it, and with the speeds and prices as they are now, it's a very viable alternative," said Ireland.

"At first it was just a novelty but, as people see the business benefits, it is becoming very popular.

"I think that if we had 30 people come to us with a genuine interest maybe 20 to 25 would go for it because of the price point and what they can accomplish over a very short space of time."

Beware overselling

But wireless cannot be sold too hard, warned Ireland. "We don't push people towards a wireless network unless they have a genuine business requirement for it," he explained.

"At the end of the day the wired network is still faster, especially with gigabit to the desktop coming soon.".

Phillip Mitchell, managing director of networking specialist reseller IntraLAN, agreed that finding a genuine need is important.

"We put wireless networks in where cabling is a problem and there are some environments where it is perfect," he said.

Modern offices will have a structure that can take cables easily and IntraLAN always recommends a wired set-up if possible, simply because it is faster and more dependable.

"We find that wireless is not that reliable," said Mitchell. "We have had quite a lot of hardware failures and we have jumped and swapped between vendors. It is improving, but you still get little things going wrong."

Compatibility between access points and protocol clashes when using IP filtering, for example, are the main problems.

Using Data Encryption Standard security or direct media access control addressing can also cause conflicts, according to Mitchell, and PCI cards and access points fail or overheat too often.

Mitchell admits that more recent installations have worked well and failure rates seem to be coming down, but poor early-adopter experiences don't help.

The overall speed that a wireless local area network (Lan) can deliver is also a reason why, in many cases, the traditional hard-wired option is the best bet.

While the arrival of the 802.11g standard has had a positive impact, the 54Mbps technology still cannot compete with the 100Mbps speed of a cabled network, according to Clive Longbottom, service director at UK analyst Quocirca.

"802.11g works and it is backwards-compatible, but the speed increase is not actually all that massive; about a three-times to five-times improvement, not the 10-times claimed," he said.

Bad press

Nick Peaster, head of sales at Citadel, a network specialist that works mostly with large City companies, warned that a lot of firms have been put off by what they have seen and heard about wireless Lans.

"Initially it was the lack of security, and obviously in the City there is a need to have extra line-of-sight units, and they just don't get planning permission," he said.

"In an ideal world it sounds great, but it's not something we are seeing a lot of. Most of the City networks are built on legacy systems."

While the City is not taking to the wireless Lan, in the wider corporate market there is genuine interest, according to Gary Strong, business development manager at reseller Security Partnerships.

"Any organisation of more than 500 seats is looking at it because flexible working and roaming between networks increases productivity," he explained. "There is definitely a good return on investment from it."

Andy Buss, senior analyst in mobility and wireless at research firm Canalys, said: "Some corporates have been very enthusiastic, while others are cautious. It really depends on the culture and mindset of the company.

"Some see it as an easy way to provide connectivity in areas that would otherwise be very expensive to cable, while others see it as a security risk and are not keen to pursue it unless there is a 100 per cent need to put it in place."

The low cost and ease of setting up a wireless Lan have, paradoxically, contributed to its image problem. For as little as £500, companies have been able to set up a 10-user system and plug it into the corporate network.

With access IDs, Wired Equivalent Privacy and other measures left at default manufacturer settings or simply turned off, security was left wide open.

This has left some companies with the perception that wireless networks can create a serious gap in their defences, but this happens only when the installation has been done badly.

Ireland maintained that he has seen a lot of badly set-up wireless networks. While resellers can try to reassure customers, they cannot go so far as to take absolute responsibility for a wireless product that has built-in security. This has not helped to build customer confidence.

"On the whole, Wi-Fi is now as secure as anything else, if it is done properly," explained Longbottom.

"The problem is that it is easier to get it wrong and leave gaping holes in the corporate defences. And these are difficult to pick up without expensive scanning equipment."

With Centrino processors running Windows XP now the standard set-up for a laptop, security is going to remain an issue.

These machines will start looking for a wireless access point the moment they are switched on and, while understanding of wireless security has grown, the user still needs specific knowledge to match that available on hard-wired systems.

Security education

Daniel Mothersdale, marketing director for northern Europe at Enterasys Networks, suggested that it is up to the whole channel to allay end-user fears over security.

"The only way of changing this perception is to educate businesses. With the right technology and policy in place the risks can be reduced dramatically, and the industry needs to get this across to the end-user community," he said.

Strong believes that many people want to use wireless but don't know how to deploy it securely. Wireless Lans can be made as secure as conventional systems as long as businesses have the right products and specialists to set them up.

"If you are talking about best-of-breed technologies such as firewalls, everyone can provide that. But wireless security is still a black art," he said.

"There are people who think they can do it and people who think, 'I'm not going to get Joe Hacker parked outside my building attacking my networks or gaining free access to the internet.'"

While it is already a specialist in general security, Security Partnerships has brought in specialist help to address wireless issues.

"With core technologies on hard-wired networks we are as good as anyone, but wireless is new and there are no actual standards to work to as yet," said Strong.

He believes that companies need to focus specifically on wireless networks in order to deliver secure systems.

Pentura is a Reading-based consultancy set up a year ago to address this need. Sales director Danny White believes that the focus needs to be on business as much as technology.

"You need to understand wireless but also what the customers want from a business perspective and what the key vendors are doing," he explained.

"The really hard work is getting to grips with all the different standards and bands, and understanding the biggest issues for customers around rogue access points, soft access points, accidental associations and the things that happen with wireless. People can't see that happening, and visibility is one of the key points."

The wave of wireless technology, however, is unrelenting. Canalys believes that four out of five laptops sold now have built-in wireless.

This does not mean it will be used immediately but it makes it easy, assuming they have Windows XP installed, for users to plug into wireless networks and make use of hotspots.

Hotspot madness

The number of hotspots is growing fast and, with the introduction of BT's Openzone service and a £500 'in-a-box' package that will enable anyone to turn their broadband connection into a hotspot, it seems likely to accelerate.

Broadreach Networks already has about 150 hotspots in the UK; BT Openzone is likely to trigger the installation of hundreds more.

Hotspots could well catch on fast. Analyst Meta Group recently predicted that they will become viable for enterprise remote access by mid-2004 and claims that we are now seeing a virtual "land grab" by providers eager to capture the most desirable hotspot locations.

But will they be used? "You've got to have the infrastructure in place and the clients who can use it. That's half the battle," said Buss.

"The rest is education and letting people know it is here. Intel is helping with the Centrino campaign but it also requires some of the hotspot providers to raise awareness."

The other key element is making it easy for users to plug into hotspots. Agreements between service providers are going to be essential or they simply will not be used, according to Longbottom.

"I refuse to pay £800 a year to each operator in case I come up against one of their hotspots," he said. "I want a single £800-per-year bill to use any operator's hotspot, transparently and easily."

The flexibility of 3G will enable this technology to sit alongside wireless hotspots.

"This is not a competition. What users want is the capability to use the fastest or the cheapest pipe that is available to them at any time. This will often be 802.11 but will also be 3G where 802.11 is not present," said Longbottom.

Roaming services and alliances between providers will need to be developed to enable this, which could take at least 18 months, according to Buss.

"It will come down to what is more convenient at the time. If you are travelling out of hotspot range, for example, you may find 3G is the solution. There will be places where they compete but on the whole they will be complementary," he said.

Wireless networking uptake has to be kept in context. "There is adoption but it is not widespread like 10/100 switched Lans," explained Buss.

"Security is more an issue of perception than reality. It comes down to educating users, and the biggest concerns are about availability because, once they are installed, they tend to work.

"But if you have too many clients it can slow things down and make applications unavailable. Customers need to be aware of the limitations, and that's an area of expertise that integrators and resellers can develop."

Click here to see How to sell wireless -- Part 2

Click here to see How to sell wireless -- Part 3