Huge interest in wireless LAN deployment expansion

AirMagnet released the results of a new research survey that found more than 92 percent of those surveyed plan to extend their WLAN deployments in 2009 despite the current state of the economy.

The survey, which had 342 respondents, was conducted from the end of November into early December 2008 and has a margin of error of approximately 5.5 percent.

Of those organizations expanding their networks, 15 percent will at least double the network in 2009. Fourteen percent will extend it by 50 percent to 75 percent, 33 percent by 25 percent to 50 percent, and 34 percent will grow it by up to 25 percent. Only 8 percent of those surveyed said they did not plan to extend their WLAN deployment in 2009.

According to the survey, two-thirds of WLAN deployments now support at least one “mission-critical” application. Forty nine percent stated that they have multiple mission-critical applications running on their WLAN and 18 percent cited a single critical application. The remainder, nearly one-third of the respondents, cited using WLANs only for convenience access, such as lobby or conference room wireless access.

Organizations are also looking to put heavy-duty applications on their WLANs in 2009, with one-third saying they plan to add video and/or collaboration, and 30 percent indicating that voice over WLAN is scheduled for next year. These applications join location services and guest access as the top WLAN applications.