Security remains top concern for wireless deployments

A recent survey by In-Stat/MDR has led the high-tech market research firm to conclude that Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) are moving beyond simply being an "overlay" to the wired LAN, to becoming a more pervasive and integral part of business customers' network infrastructure. In-Stat/MDR finds that this is particularly evident when comparing survey respondents whose businesses have currently deployed WLANs with respondents whose businesses are planning to deploy WLANs in the near future: respondents indicate that planned WLANs will be accessible to a larger percentage of the business' employees and consist of a larger number of APs (infrastructure) than current WLANs. Respondents are also planning larger mean CAPEX budgets for future WLAN deployments, compared to the mean CAPEX budgets for current WLAN deployments. It is strongly evident that security is the top concern among all of the segments of respondents surveyed. Security concerns were cited as the top reason for respondents to NOT deploy WLANs in their networks, narrowly edging out "no need for WLANs." Not surprisingly, these respondents cited enhancing security as the top thing that vendors could do to change the respondents' minds about not deploying WLANs. Likewise, security was the top concern/problem that respondents who have already deployed WLANs faced with WLAN and was, by far, the top concern that respondents who are considering the deployment of WLAN in the future have with the technology.