Howard makes good points. Let me offer another view, perhaps more mainline-business" oriented, vs. the very special requirements in medicine (which I do appreciate -- I'm alive, thank you, radiologist and surgeon).
The increase in productivity due to wireless is believed to come--and I can't be more specific than "believed" since I don't know the quality of the supposed studies--from capturing value in otherwise wasted time, and/or from making qualitative improvements in the work environment, leading to more output from the extant inputs. Whether it is a good idea in the long run to capture the work that could be done when not at the desk (via 802.11 systems) has not been assessed; we are gathering much empirical evidence, though ;-). Personally, the time away from the desk is most useful to me--I decompress, and I think. Improving the work environment qualitatively may be as simple as giving people the chance to work while getting up and moving around--not being chained to their plow, er, desk. If this makes people more comfortable overall, the theory goes, all their work will improve overall. Theory really is a wonderful thing, and qualitative improvements do matter. Whether this is among the ones which actually help is moot--I recall being grievously annoyed in my cubicle days by people whose conversations made it hard for me to work--getting their voicemail over a speakerphone was a pet peeve. Someone walking around my work area chatting on a portable phone could make me go postal if I need to concentrate and can't. But, as Howard said, this is one of many potential tools in the kit. In a sense, it may make our job harder, since we will need to be able to recognize the appropriate tool to solve the problem, which puts us squarely in the problem-recognition business. And we may need to persuade customers they don't need the gee-whizziest tool; the same amount of money could provide x, y, and z, or they could simply spend less money. Probably not an argument that will go over well in your present job, I know. But I have a customer who keeps coming back--because I keep finding him the most economical solution for the problems I've identified which he is choosing to solve this month vs. deferring. Every bit of business not deferred further comes back to me. But that's a long-term view again, and many businesses don't feel they can take a long view; the stock market may punish them too severely. Annlee Chuck Whose Road is Ever Shorter wrote: > ""Howard C. Berkowitz"" wrote in message > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > >>What's the medium cost between the two cities? Can you use demand >>circuits as a backup? Can you live with one more PVC and trust the >>physical connection? Is QoS-unpredictable cable or DSL available? >> > > > Funny you should ask this, Howard. I've been struggling for several weeks > how to pose the question. Have we, the engineering / technical sales > community oversold the idea of dedicated bandwidth and QoS? > > Take, for example, wireless. > > Wireless is essentially a step backwards. For years we have been convincing > customers to get rid of their hubs and move into a switched domain, with > dedicated bandwidth for every user. This is often done in the name of > productivity. Fewer interruptions of data streams, meaning work completed > faster.Now all the wireless vendors ( Cisco included ) are producing studies > showing how wireless is increasing productivity to the tune of an hour a > day. On a shared contention medium. Cisco will shortly release their > wireless telephone as part of their AVVID suite of products, competing with > the SpectraLink product that has been available for a couple of years. > > All this gives one reason to re-evaluate what we have been told for the last > couple of years. a contention medium provides the means for greater > productivity? > > You mention QoS in your response above. QoS is something being pushed as > necessary for voice, video, and other delay sensitive traffic. Cisco > wireless AP's offer one way quasi QoS. Wireless, however, remains a > contention medium, and will remain so until the FCC changes the rules. I'm > not sure they will be able to release sufficient radio spectrum to permit > all the bandwidth and services that wired can. But wireless is so damn > convenient! > > I'm not suggesting that dedicated bandwidth to the desktop is a bad thing or > that there is not need for QoS. However, I'm wondering how all of us might > reconcile two seemingly opposed points of view regarding bandwidth and QoS - > recognizing that wireless, whatever it's limitations, is here to stay, and > will become and remain essential to any and all networks, enterprise or > small business, going forward. Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=72662&t=72645 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
