Wireless
Local Area Networks are growing in number - significantly - across North
America.
Indicators of market interest, like press coverage, chat room buzz,
and point-of-sale displays in office supply stores, all suggest a
significant movement towards
implementation of wireless LANs.
Canada isn’t being left out of this movement to wireless - despite some
recent analyst remarks suggesting the contrary. One leading manufacturer, LinkSys
Group Inc., of Irvine, California, shipped over 20,000 wireless basestations
to Canada last quarter – and expects its quarterly numbers to grow significantly
over the coming year. Another example: A pioneer in the business of wireless
LANs, Apple Computer Inc., of Cupertino, California, continues to make wireless
capability a major feature of its personal computers. The results of its efforts
can be seen (Exhibit 9, below) in the number of deployed Apple-branded wireless
basestations registering in SeaBoard Group’s ‘sniff’ of deployed
infrastructure in three Canadian cities. Apple’s 12% share of the WiFi
market far exceeds Apple’s 2% share of the overall PC market.
Wireless
LAN basestations, and PCMCIA card client hardware appear to be tumbling off
of
shelves – but where are these networks? Are they in the enterprise? Or
are they in the
small/home office (SOHO) space? What are the obstacles that need to be overcome
so that
WLANs become even more ubiquitous? This report will present some recent SeaBoard
research that addresses these questions. This report will also examine the implications
of what we feel is an important recent (December 2002) announcement by Canada’s
largest communications company, Bell Canada, concerning its entry into the WLAN
provisioning business, and, importantly, the implications of the support Bell
intends to give its enterprise customers as they roam beyond their campus environments.
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