Wireless AC vs Ethernet recabling for small office
-
I have get rid of old 10/100 switches put on the floor just to make new ethernet ports available for two rooms of a small office with 3 desktop per room... two strategies:
- complete recabling of the room;
- just an AC AP for the desktops (the ports are enugh for VoIP deskphones/printers).
The thing is, recabling the rooms is hard because the cable tubes inside the walls are full so new cables will need new canalization etc... the WiFi can easily cost less (just the price of the AP + 1-2 AC pci adapters for the desktop that aren't WiFi enabled) and can reduce the cable clutting.
What do you think about it? I know cable is general more cost effective and reliable (and faster, of course), but this is a brownfield environment and one of the room will also need a new wall rack for the room switch, new patch panel...
Of course I will put one AP (ubiquiti lite) per room, and every AP will serve no more than 3 desktop + 3 mobile phones. -
If there aren't any privacy or security requirements that force wired, I would go with WiFi. It has become sufficiently stable in my experience that there isn't a large argument for wiring everything in an environment like you're describing.
-
Comes down to the cost, I guess. Wireless is definitely good today, but wired is so easy and reliable. How much it will cost to get the wired is the big question.
-
We have very little space in the tubes. I’m thinking about going with MPO/MPT or multiple fiber cables for recabling, because they will take much less space.
EDIT: now I see that today a single SMF can do what an MPO did for a lot of bandwidth, uhm.
-
I would say wireless might be easier to setup in this case.
-
@francesco-provino said in Wireless AC vs Ethernet recabling for small office:
We have very little space in the tubes. I’m thinking about going with MPO/MPT or multiple fiber cables for recabling, because they will take much less space.
EDIT: now I see that today a single SMF can do what an MPO did for a lot of bandwidth, uhm.
Might be a good compromise.
-
If you have enough wire for phones, then do you have more desktops than phones? Because every phone has a switch built in.
-
@francesco-provino said in Wireless AC vs Ethernet recabling for small office:
We have very little space in the tubes. I’m thinking about going with MPO/MPT or multiple fiber cables for recabling, because they will take much less space.
EDIT: now I see that today a single SMF can do what an MPO did for a lot of bandwidth, uhm.
You may be surprised at how inexpensive SMF is to run these days as well. But if you have the space in your conduit look into Fiber Microducting. It can make adding new cables (if needed) later much easier.
