R E L A T E D C O N T E N T

IT heads shy from move to WLANs

UK IT managers are adopting a more cautious approach to wireless LANs than their US counterparts

Martin Courtney, IT Week 05 Sep 2003

More than half of UK IT managers remain unconvinced by the business benefits of wireless LANs (WLANs), according to a recent survey, and only seven percent of those questioned said they had rolled out WLAN technology in a significant way.

The survey of 100 IT managers representing companies with turnovers of over £50m was commissioned by Allnet, the network infrastructure services arm of Cable & Wireless, and conducted by research firm Vanson Bourne.

Forty-eight percent of respondents said they were not clear about the benefits of WLANs. Other significant barriers to WLAN adoption were security concerns, cited by 38 percent, and budgetary constraints, cited by 32 percent.

The survey indicates that UK firms are far less enamoured with wireless technology than their counterparts in the US - 56 percent said they had no plans to implement any form of WLAN at all.

Allnet stressed that the business benefits of wireless technology vary enormously, and should be carefully assessed on a case-by-case basis before a decision is made on how to proceed.

"There are certain environments, such as call centres, where the desk and the workplace are synonymous. But work is increasingly regarded as an activity rather than a location, and therefore almost any business can benefit from a wireless LAN," argued Alan Wright, Allnet's head of wireless architecture.

Allnet said the benefits of WLANs include ease of movement and connectivity; increased productivity as users are released from the constraints of wired network infrastructure; reduced support costs because less work will be involved in network changes or relocations; and lower facilities costs thanks to hot desking.

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