Computer Lab: Wired or Wireless?

[damunzy]

Here is my dilemma: I am on the Computer Lab Comittee for Hope Christian School and we need to decide on whether we are going to go with a wired network or a wireless one. There are going to be 20 student desktops and 1 teacher laptop.

Wired:
(21) 10/100 Mbps wired NICs - $0 as they are built in
(1) 24-port 10/100 Mbps Switch - $80 (not counting the rebate)
Cabling and jacks - about $100 to $200 - I will run the cabling and install the jacks.
Total - $180 - $280
Pros:
1. Dealt with a lot of wired LANs before
2. Cheaper than Wireless.
3. Faster bandwidth.
Cons:
1. Wireless sounds cooler (to woo the prospective parents).
2. Have another wire besides the power cords to deal with.

Wireless:
(20) 54 Mbps wireless NICs - $24 EA for a subtotal of $480
(1) 54 Mbps wireless Access Point (AP) - $59
Cabling and jacks - $30 - still need a little bit of cabling and one jack to run the internet in from the other part of the school.
Total - $569
Pros:
1. A lot less wiring - less work for me.
2. Sounds cool (the parents thingy).
3. Easy connection for people that bring in computers (although there isn't any room for additional computers in the room - it will be full).
Cons:
1. Never dealt with a large number of computers connected to one Wireless AP.
2. Slower bandwidth, 54 Mbps max.
3. Much more expensive (over 2 times more).
4. Sun spots can shut us down (okay, not sure about that one, but pass the rumour on ).

I am leaning wired network, even though it is more work for me, and have leaned that way through out all of our meetings but I want to give the wireless option a chance. What think you?

Thanks.

 

[ainwood]

Lots of my random thoughts:

1.) Will the 'sounds cooler' factor really make much difference? Will most parents know the difference?
2.) What are the ongoing maintenance costs? The up-front costs for the wireless network may be more, but the ongoing costs may be less (or more - you should consider it).
3.) Are there any other costs you haven't considered? Eg. electricity (likely to be small).
3.) What is the total IT budget? Will the incremental cost difference make a material difference to the bottom line? What would the money be used for instead?
4.) "A lot less wiring" - I presume you are doing it for free / voluntarily, but what if (for example) you did consider your time as a cost - what could you be doing differently in the time it would take?
5.) The wires / cables etc might be a trip hazard - are you going to run them around the walls / across the floor, or are you going to pull them through the walls / roof cavity? If so, are you doing this yourself, or hiring someone?
6.) The wireless bandwidth may be lower, but what exactly will the bandwidth be used for? Is it going to be a constraint or not?

 

[col]

Bandwidth every time. As soon as you have a number of students streaming videos, your network will slow a lot. There are security issues too.

The biggest argument in favour of wireless is cost. Cabling costs a lot of money to do right. Drilling holes, putting in trunking is time consuming and expensive. Its not just the cost of cable. On the other hand, if you have all your trunking ready, there's no reason not to.

We use wireless for a set of laptops whiich can be taken to any room in college for use. Thats a more flexible option.

 

[Grisu]

1) Bandwidth: IIRC in wireless all users share the bandwidth, which may lead to a bandwidth shortage. Furthermore you won't ever reach 54M anyway, it's usually more like 20-25M (even if it shows that you got connected at 54Mbps). You won't have similar problems if you use a 100M wired Switch

2) Freak-Factor: even if it sounds cooler, you may have to deal with the feng-shui kinda parents who're afraid of some weird emissions...

3) Stability: Even if it's become better, wireless networks are IMHO still nowhere as stable as wired ones. You might experience occasional connection drops and similar inconveniences.

4) Security: You'd have to at least go WPA in order to provide acceptable stability -> additional configuration time, more expensive hardware.

For stationary installations I don't really see a point in going wireless. the additional cable isn't that big an effort, is it?

 

[The Person]

For stationary installations I don't really see a point in going wireless. the additional cable isn't that big an effort, is it?

It is. If you are starting entirely from scratch with none of the holes or anything it's gonna take an eternity to get it all right. Here at my home we have three computers connected to our cabled network and it took hours to lay the cables and bore the holes to put them through. If the walls are thick you might also have problems pushing the cable through (personal experience). But it was worth the effort.

But I don't think there should be much of a problem if all computers are in the same room. Just make sure you fasten the cables properly to the wall and that no cables are lying around on the floor. You don't want to trip over the cables, do you?

 

[Strider]

It took me 15 minutes just to get one cable ready for a wired network. That was one our of about 4 dozen. If your going to be doing the wiring yourself, then I would go wireless, just because it would be a 1-2 hour job, instead of a 1-2 week job.

If someone else is doing it, then go for the wired network!

 

[Grisu]

It took me 15 minutes just to get one cable ready for a wired network. That was one our of about 4 dozen. If your going to be doing the wiring yourself, then I would go wireless, just because it would be a 1-2 hour job, instead of a 1-2 week job.

If someone else is doing it, then go for the wired network!

if you need 1-2 weeks for a single room / compute lab, you're certainly doing something wrong. You need cables anyway for the power, so it's just one more cable per pc.

I agree though that it's a lot harder if you have to wire separate rooms, then I'd go with wireless too (or alternatively use a powerline bridge)

 

[damunzy]

Lots of my random thoughts:

1.) Will the 'sounds cooler' factor really make much difference? Will most parents know the difference?

Believe it or not people, even people that think they know a little bit about computers, seem to like the word, wireless.

2.) What are the ongoing maintenance costs? The up-front costs for the wireless network may be more, but the ongoing costs may be less (or more - you should consider it).

I really can't see a difference between the two.

3.) Are there any other costs you haven't considered? Eg. electricity (likely to be small).

Small.

3.) What is the total IT budget? Will the incremental cost difference make a material difference to the bottom line? What would the money be used for instead?

Once again, small. The current budge is looking at $550 USD or less per computer not counting monitor. Break down:
$35 - MicroATX Tower/desktop case
$36 - 512 MB of RAM, PC 3200
$30ish - mobo with built-in sound/Vid/NIC
$68 - AMP Sempron 2500+
$55 - 80 GB WD 8 MB Hard Drive
$146 - M$ XP Pro
$48 - DVD+-RW Dual Layer
$13 - Floppy Drive
$35 - Shipping and handling
$471 - Total....about

4.) "A lot less wiring" - I presume you are doing it for free / voluntarily, but what if (for example) you did consider your time as a cost - what could you be doing differently in the time it would take?

Yes, free. My time is valuable to me but I want to make sure that this school gets its computer lab (my wife teaches there).

5.) The wires / cables etc might be a trip hazard - are you going to run them around the walls / across the floor, or are you going to pull them through the walls / roof cavity? If so, are you doing this yourself, or hiring someone?

Will be professionally done by me - no trip hazard.

6.) The wireless bandwidth may be lower, but what exactly will the bandwidth be used for? Is it going to be a constraint or not?

Always need more bandwidth.

Thanks for the feedback, ainwood.

 

[damunzy]

Bandwidth every time. As soon as you have a number of students streaming videos, your network will slow a lot. There are security issues too.

Security is a concern, but I can harden the computers so that shouldn't be a problem.

The biggest argument in favour of wireless is cost. Cabling costs a lot of money to do right. Drilling holes, putting in trunking is time consuming and expensive. Its not just the cost of cable. On the other hand, if you have all your trunking ready, there's no reason not to.

In this instance the labour is free [me] and most of the cabling will be in the drop down ceiling (the kind with paneling hanging from the upper ceiling). I guestimate that I will need less than 1000' feet of CAT5 cabling which will run about $50. In addition to that I will need a few drop boxes and some cable concealers at maybe another $50.

We use wireless for a set of laptops whiich can be taken to any room in college for use. Thats a more flexible option.

I am thinking that we can still have a wireless AP and allow the teachers and any other laptop users to utilize that and still get the "wow" factor of wireless.

 

[damunzy]

1) Bandwidth:
3) Stability:
4) Security:
For stationary installations I don't really see a point in going wireless. the additional cable isn't that big an effort, is it?

All good points. Thanks.

 

[damunzy]

It took me 15 minutes just to get one cable ready for a wired network. That was one our of about 4 dozen. If your going to be doing the wiring yourself, then I would go wireless, just because it would be a 1-2 hour job, instead of a 1-2 week job.

If someone else is doing it, then go for the wired network!

I am guessing that you made the cable manually? I have cables that take that long sometimes but others are done in 5 minutes or less, plus the more you do in one day the better each cable gets.

 

[damunzy]

You need cables anyway for the power, so it's just one more cable per pc.

Egg-zactly! The tables will sit two students with one computer per student. The tables will have cable routers in them for the power cords, and in this case it also looks like network cables.

Thanks for all of your input - I will bring this back to the committee and will let you know about the final decision.

 

[The Person]

Just don't forget to encrypt your wireless connection if you choose to go for that.