Wireless vs Cable

wireless pro:
flexibility in office layout.
you can put a workstation wherever you want easily, no hastle with connection to network.
much easier expantion of network

wireless con:
it's much more difficult to secure completely, and people outside of company will feel it's thier right to use your hotpoint(s) to get online if it's not locked down.
slightly slower transfer rates

cable pro:
more secure
slightly faster transfer rates

cable con:
more difficult in altering workstation placement.
not as easily expandable.

really, I would combine the two.
wired for print servers, receptionist workstation, accounting department.

wireless for everything else. and include a hotpoint in the board room, much easier for presentations to be able to pull the data up for visul when answering a question.

the "board room" is usally ignored when it comes to networking, so the benefits of the tech don't get used properly there.

can't argue with Jaqui. Wireless makes me edgy even using WPA. I find I monitor the wireless access for rogue comps all the time. At least with wired, they have get access to the building to jack in or come in from the internet. I can get alerts for that. I can't for wireless.

In your situation, the only reason to even attempt to use wireless is if wired is not possible or it will be a temp setup.

If you think it can get crazy trying to chase ghost in a wired enviroment, trying doing it is a multiple wireless enviroment.

Good Luck

Lee

I preface this with "this is only my opinion and does not reflect the opinions of upper management, lawyers, or the US Congress"

We just expanded our company from 15,000 sqft to 75,000 sqft. At the same time we upgraded from a layer 2 to a full layer 3 network which included wired and wireless.

My suggestion is this. Look at this from a business perspective and not just IT. We put in wireless because we have clients brining their laptops in. They want to be "hip/trendy" and be wireless. Not to mention we don't want to spend hours being their IT department and hooking their systems up to our network (major security issues there). So to accomodate them we upgraded our WAPs and increased the amount of APs. However, we isolated that down created several SSIDs, changed key indexs, encrypted and changed the guest wireless to its on VLAN to isolate their traffic. Business and security needs dictated two multiple wireless groups. Do you need to do that? Is managing that scope worth your time and hassle for 2-10 wireless users?

Wired is easier to secure and troubleshoot in my opinion not to mention that if the landlord is going to do the install that is money in your pocket. Wouldn't be concerned with the VPN. That will be wired anyways to bring them in via the firewall and then onto your network servers via a switch/router.

My suggestion is this: mix the two but rely more on the wired than the wireless. Put in 2-3 WAPs and "play" with the wireless network. See how it meshes with your business need and model. Set it up in the client and other laptop areas. Set up a tactical goal of short term wireless objectives (the 2-10 users on board daily) and the strategic goal of when the company grows how to expand your wireless safely and effectively.

It seems to me that wired is more the way to go for you at the moment with some planning on the books for how to implement and mesh wireless as the company grows over the next 1-5 years.

Best of luck!

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