Extending your network and growing productivity with wireless: A roadmap

White paper
April 2010

By Ian Wineberg
Associate Director, Wireless Solutions, Bell

and

By Andrew Mitchell
Senior Manager, Professional Services, Bell

Extending your network and growing productivity with wireless: A roadmap

Wireless technology has truly come of age. It has evolved to the point where high-definition video can be reliably and securely transmitted over a corporate wireless network. Now, even the most risk-averse organizations are leveraging the power of wireless and depending on it to increase their competitive advantage. They understand that adding wireless functionality brings compelling business benefits, including vastly increasing worker mobility and access, improved networking, cost savings and increased productivity, among others.

So should your organization be scrambling to rip out your existing wired network? Absolutely not. While the discussion surrounding wireless capabilities is often framed in terms of “rip and replace”, this really isn't an either/or scenario. The real question is how you can use the power of wireless to augment your wired (wireline) environment.

We've created this white paper to help you answer this question.

We'll examine:

• The current state of wireless technology
• Advantages of wireless networking
• Best use-case scenarios for wireless
• Best practices in creating a roadmap for wireless implementation
• Building in security and the role of policy

This resource will provide a more complete understanding of the present-day wireless networking environment and the opportunities that it presents for organizations across Canada.

1.0 Wireless technology: Where are we?

Since the first public mobile telephone call was made in 1973, wireless technology has evolved more rapidly with each passing decade. Mainstream businesses began adopting wireless around the turn of the century and soon, wireless will likely form a major part of every organization's communications infrastructure.

1.1 Two technologies

In thinking about wireless, it is important to understand that there are two broad categories of leading technologies and standards:

• Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) is most common within indoor environments and uses 802.11n (2009), the latest standard from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
• Mobile broadband uses the high-speed packet access (HSPA+) standard, available on cellular networks almost anywhere

The latest WLAN standard (802.11n) boasts speeds of up to 600 Megabits per second (Mbps), while HSPA+ mobile technology is the most advanced all-IP wireless Wide Area Network technology deployed by carriers in Canada today. As good as HSPA+ is, mobile networks have one more step to take, with emerging Long Term Evolution (LTE) or 4G technology. Although market watchers expect it to remain in development for the next couple of years, LTE technology promises even greater throughput and reliability.

See Table 1 below for a comparison of how both technologies match up to various wireless capabilities.

1.2 Reliability, speed and security

In the past, wireless was not always an obvious choice for business because of bandwidth, reliability or security issues. But with recently emerged 802.11n and HSPA+ standards, technology has evolved to address these issues, paving the way for widespread use of wireless wherever the best business use-case demands it.

2.0 Extending connectivity

It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking of wireless technologies as replacements for wireline connectivity. But this presupposes that wireline networks are somehow insufficient or inferior, and that the benefits of wireless justify a rip-and-replace strategy. This is just not so — wireline connectivity has been serving Canadian organizations well for more than a decade and is not likely to disappear any time soon.

Whether wireline or wireless, the main business benefit that these networks delivers is bringing connectivity to point of function, wherever employees need access. If that is a desk 95% of the time, wireline may make good sense. But in many organizations, employees also unplug their laptops to bring them to internal meetings, and access the corporate network wherever they happen to be, by either plugging in or connecting wirelessly.

Table 1 – Activating value with wireless

2.1 Wireless: serious advantages

It is useful to think of wireless connectivity as an extension of the wireline environment, bringing connectivity to areas that cannot be served by the wireline network. And wireless connectivity also offers further advantages due to the mobility and portability it enables. Its top benefits include:

• Reduces the cost of infrastructure – In the wired world, at each desktop you have a cable connected to a switch. This one-to-one aspect ratio means it's expensive to move or provision many individuals. With wireless, the more individuals there are, the lower the cost per individual
• Optimizes costs – When you have the option of choosing wireless, you can choose the technology that is the most cost efficient. For example, wireless could make the best financial sense in new facilities, in facilities under renovation or in boardrooms
• Reduces time to information, increases employee productivity – When employees can connect at any time to the information and applications they need, productivity increases significantly
• Improves service to customers – Two important parts of customer service are responsiveness and speed of resolution, and both are positively impacted by wireless
• Increases employee satisfaction and retention – Wireless connectivity can increase job satisfaction, and thus employee retention, in several ways:
  • It permits employees to connect and work when it is most convenient for them
  • It reduces location dependence and the need to always be in the office
  • It facilitates different work models, such as teleworking
  • It remove technical barriers to responsiveness, reducing stress

2.2 Use cases; where does wireless make sense?

There are many use-case scenarios for wireless connectivity. Here are two common examples that serve to illustrate how wireless can benefit an organization:

• Empowering retail sales staff
  Point of sale (POS) systems are in wide use at points of purchase among major, and increasingly, smaller retailers around the world. Introducing wireless technology into the retail environment extends the functionality and benefits associated with POS to the entire store.
  
  Consider this case: After a 3-month pilot program in their flagship store, a major retailer rolled out secure 802.11n technology at its locations across Canada. All sales staff received training on handheld wireless devices that enable them to check product inventory, specifications, and to conduct purchase and returns transactions wherever they happen to be in the store, enabling each salesperson to answer all customer needs in real time, on the spot.
  
  This implementation of wireless handheld devices resulted in:
  • Faster purchase cycles
  • Increased customer satisfaction
  • Increased knowledge and sense of satisfaction among employees
  • Decreased customer attrition at point of purchase
• Closing the deal with finance and professional services
  In industries like insurance, finance and real estate, the sooner that salespeople are able to capitalize on a prospect's enthusiasm, the more likely they are to finalize a sale. One mortgage brokerage took advantage of wireless technology to substantially increase conversions.

The organization's sales representatives met in person with prospective customers. But before a contract could be finalized, sales team members had to return paperwork to the office, have it approved and arrange another visit with prospects. That time lapse was enough to occasionally lose contracts.

Through a combination of making changes to its back-end workflow and creating an enterprise application the securely linked laptops to company servers, the organization enabled sales agents to finalize virtually any contract during their first visit with prospects.

This new approach to contracting resulted in:

• A faster sales cycle
• Higher conversion rates
• Greater sales team satisfaction
• Higher customer satisfaction

These are just two examples among many of how companies are successfully using wireless to strengthen their operations. Use-case scenarios like these can be used as a starting point for your own, which will be a critical part of developing your own roadmap to wireless.

3.0 Mapping the road to wireless

There are many factors that should inform how you choose to extend the network with state-of-the-art wireless connectivity. These include:

• The present state of your network
• Organizational business drivers and goals
• The industry in which your organization operates
• Job responsibilities of key employees
• Use-case scenarios

Every situation will be different, depending upon these factors and on whether or not wireless is currently in use.

Fortunately, there are clear best practices for determining where wireless can be used most effectively. This paper concentrates on best practices in the context of an enterprise having a predominately, but not exclusively, wireline network. The steps below illustrate the process of creating the optimal environment. Steps include:

• Profiling your organization
• Benchmarking your current state
• Examining use-case scenarios
• Comparing technology options and developing an architecture
• Finding and documenting cost savings

3.1 Profile your organization

Organizations need to take different approaches to connectivity, depending on their current situation and their goals. What are your reasons for wanting to upgrade the network with wireless?

List your goals, beginning with your business drivers. Determine the highest-priority drivers for a move to wireless, including such motivations as:

• Enabling staff to increase productivity
• Cost savings
• Upgrading end of life equipment
• Opening a new facility or renovating an existing one
• Shifting towards telework
• Other reasons

Next, determine the locations of people within the organization that need wireless connectivity. Are they within just one part of one facility, or will this be a general roll-out in multiple locations?

Finally, are you extending your existing wireless network's reach or upgrading, or are you new to wireless? Determine which scenario best fits your current needs:

• Upgrade: If wireless is part of your current mix and you have the infrastructure to support the technology, you may benefit by upgrading your current WLAN environment to add mobility for outside workers and employees on the road. However, don't rule out moving straight to HSPA+. Your business model and particular needs will inform your decision
• New systems: If wireless does not currently form a significant part of your network, you should carefully consider the technologies available in the marketplace and decide on the right mix based on your organizational profile, including:
  • The proportion of employees that need connectivity with enterprise applications outside of the office
  • What requirements exist for wireless within the office environment—location, coverage, how it will used
  • Whether you are renovating existing space or building a new facility and need to explore options for connectivity provisioning

3.2 Benchmark your current state

To determine how best to reach your goals, you must know your starting point. Benchmarking will, of course, also allow you to measure progress against all kinds of metrics, including those that demonstrate return on investment (ROI). There are two areas in which benchmarking should occur: organizational and technical.

Organizational considerations

• Business problems – Knowing the issues that confront your business is important, because a wireless solution may go some way toward solving it. Use internal focus groups to ensure that you are correct about the business problems that exist throughout the organization and their prioritization
• Regulatory environment – List the regulatory or other constraints you need to address or with which you need to comply
• Points of connectivity – Catalogue current points of connectivity versus those for the future state throughout the organization – on the road, in the office, on the shop floor, at point of purchase, etc.

Technical considerations

• Current wireless throughput – Are current throughput levels sufficient for voice, video and other high-demand applications, or is current usage of wireless infrastructure limited by speed?
• Security – The wireless environment needs to comply with best practices in regards to security standards, as well as your current policies. This could be a good time to look at connectivity as a whole and ensure that all aspects conform
• Reach – The future state of your wireless environment and what kind of technology is optimal – will be influenced by whether wireless connectivity currently exists throughout facilities, only in certain areas, or beyond the enterprise perimeter through mobile networks

3.3 Examine use-case scenarios

One of the most fundamental questions your organization will need to ask itself when planning a wireless implementation is this: What challenges do we need to overcome?

To answer that question effectively, forget for the time being the way that things are currently done. Instead, build use-case scenarios around key business processes. Take the external sales team – what kinds of capabilities would benefit team members on the road? Consider the following:

• Are there existing enterprise applications that they could use?
• Would consolidating voice mailboxes increase productivity?
• Is there a need to submit estimates, applications or orders from the point of customer contact?

You should also be thinking about developing and documenting requirements for key user groups with interviews and/or user surveys. Use-case scenarios should be built around key business functions, such as: office and outside workers, top applications used in the business and high impact communication flow patterns. By discovering the most efficient ways of getting things done, you can decide how they would ideally work.

3.4 Compare technologies, develop architecture

Based on the requirements of your core use-case scenarios and your organizational profile, now develop a framework for examining the various technology options. Start by comparing your current-state benchmarks to your future-state plan with a view to the ways in which the technology options will help achieve those objectives.

Appraise the technology options based on:

• Cost
• Manageability
• Scalability
• Flexibility
• Security & privacy considerations

Also, consider your coverage area: If the solution you are looking to implement includes mobile workers, how do you address all of the same points of comparison outside of the enterprise environment?

Developing a conceptual architecture will provide a graphical representation of how 802.11n and HSPA+ technologies interrelate. This can help to illustrate data flow for various activities, build network security scenarios and more.

3.4a Ease of integration

How well technology integrates will be a critical consideration in the selection process. Integrating with existing infrastructure and applications can take some doing. For example, best use-cases might dictate the use of a single sign-on solution. Can technology options accommodate that? Another example is the use of a legacy corporate email client on all devices, including new smart phones.

Not all enterprise applications support mobility out of the box – especially legacy applications that don't require frequent upgrades. If this is the case with your organization, the options it has include upgrading to a newer version of the application or purchasing a similar application that integrates, finding appropriate middleware to facilitate an integration, or even delaying the move to mobile. A simple return on investment calculation will often clarify which route to take.

The challenges of integration may get in the way of building your ideal future state environment. This is a common stumbling block: organizations shoot for the stars only to be held back by integration details. But any obstacle can be overcome. Discuss the specific details with your vendor or implementation team, or engage the assistance of an experienced consultant to decide whether or not it makes sense to strive for the ultimate solution, or to find some middle ground instead.

3.5 Find and document cost savings

The business case for wireless will be proven through a high-level cost/benefit analysis. The object is to quantify the benefits over time, assigning them a dollar value. While there is no single formula for such calculations, you could determine the financial impact of an increase in productivity, plus increased customer and employee satisfaction, less the forecasted savings in installation and relocation costs, given the technology and architecture you select.

For example, you might calculate:

• The financial benefits of a productivity increase thanks to having sales and maintenance workers submit reports once, at the point of function, rather than at the end of the day or when they return to their desktops
• The cost savings of outfitting a new facility with wireless instead of wireline
• Churn reduction thanks to increased customer response times

3.6 Building in security

Security considerations form an important part of wireless architecture, and they need to be part of the roadmapping process from the beginning. Security best practices surrounding WLAN and mobility follow the same principles, but differ in details. Keep in mind that a security assessment is always recommended when implementing or making changes to a mobile enterprise environment. Implementing best practice data security is an important part of mitigating business risk, no matter where employees connect to the network, or what kind of network they use.

Both WLAN and mobility solutions need to fit in with the overall enterprise security vision. Some questions to consider are:

• Does wireless conform to existing security policy?
• Does it live up to overall enterprise security standards?
• Is sensitive data encrypted to an acceptable level?
• Are rogue access point detection systems as effective as your security information and event management (SIEM) solution, or is that the weakest link?
• Are mobile devices password-protected?
• Is there a way to disable mobile devices if they are lost or stolen?

3.6a The role of policy

An overall security policy can help to establish a regimen that mitigates the risk of a security breach. It's important to realize that risks associated with both wireline and wireless configurations form just one small part of IT security risk. The larger threat comes from imperfect installation, patching, and the human element. These three considerations need to form part of your policy as well.

The need for policy is critical, for several reasons:

• Privacy issues
• Technology changes
• The personal nature of devices
• The need to comply with an ever-increasing burden of regulation

As telecommuting and personal data assistants (PDAs) become widespread, it becomes more difficult to determine where the corporate network ends, let alone to regulate it. And organizations are taking different attitudes towards the proliferation of devices: some embrace the use of personal PDAs and take steps to ensure security, while others work against the trend.

Both approaches are valid, but either way it's important to make sure that it's done properly. First, set policy, and then consider enlisting the help of a third party with experience in making policy a reality by utilizing best practices to secure the corporate mobile environment.

For more information about elements of WLAN security and WLAN device-based configuration in particular, see Bell's white paper on WLAN security.

4.0 Moving forward, seamlessly

In order to effectively harness the benefits of wireless networking, organizations require a solid roadmap and a comprehensive plan that will help them get the most from their networks now and in the future.

We have outlined here the broad steps to take in developing a roadmap for wireless. To go deeper, consider enlisting the assistance of a third party with solid experience in creating roadmaps and rolling out wireless solutions for organizations such as yours. The insights and guidance that the right team can provide save time and money during planning and execution, and result in a better architecture for the long term.

4.1 Choosing a provider

It is important to analyze potential providers' offerings in terms of high-level expertise and technical experience, the depth and breadth of their offerings, and their overall ability to satisfy your specific requirements.

Consider, for example, the emerging technologies in the marketplace that can provide lowest cost routing by seamlessly switching voice and data transmissions from one protocol to another. So a call received on the HSPA+ network can automatically be switched to voice over WLAN when the user is in the office, reducing the cost of the call.

You need a partner that can provide not only the right mix of wireless technology, but also with ongoing technological improvements, This will help your organization to stay ahead of the curve and continue to reap the benefits of this constantly evolving technology.

Talk to Bell

Bell is a Canadian leader in wireless networking. We offer the full range of solutions and can help you with all aspects of making the move to wireless, including consulting, planning, provision of wireless technologies for LAN and mobility as well as implementation. Contact your Bell representative to find out more, or request that a Bell a representative contact you.

About the authors

Ian Wineberg is an Associate Director, Wireless Solutions at Bell. Ian has gained extensive experience in developing and implementing wireless communications solutions, both at Bell and in his previous role as a communications security consultant.

Andrew Mitchell is a Senior Manager with Bell's Professional Services team. Andrew has more than 27 years of experience in architecting advanced wireless and emerging telecommunications solutions and defence electronics.