It's not hard to network a few computers and a printer in the same
room. It's a major logistical nightmare to wire up an existing home and
office for ethernet. It involves a lot of planning, pulling wire, and
money - especially if you're paying someone to run the wires.
The Home Network
At home, we have a huge tangle of ethernet cabling connecting seven
Macs in the same room. All the computers are in one room, but only
because it's too much work to run wires from the basement to the first
and second floor.
Frankly, I'd rather not have all the computers in one room. I like a
little peace and quiet when I write and go through my email, but
someone's always playing a game on one of the other computers.
The Office Network
When I started at Baker Book
House, we had about a dozen Macs on a LocalTalk network, along with
a few LaserWriter printers. It was one long daisy chain of phone wire
and PhoneNet connectors. It was slow, but it was cheap and easy to
maintain.
Today we have 70-80 Macs, about a dozen printers, and an ISDN router
connected to our ethernet network. The building currently has
about
120 ethernet ports, some not currently in use and
others not conveniently located. It costs a minimum of $200 to get the
wiring people in to install a new port.
And then there's the network hub, a snake pit of wires almost
impossible to trace from port to hub. In fact, each ethernet connection
involves three wires: computer to wall, wall jack to ports on our
wiring rack, and a third wire from that port the the hub itself.
If any of those are bad, the connection is either flaky or dead.
And when someone decides to rearrange their office, for some reason
(Murphy's Law), the ethernet cable they had used isn't quite long
enough.
The AirPort Network
All that is about to change, because AirPort isn't just for the
iBook. The Power Mac
G4/450 and 500 are AirPort ready, and there are rumors the next
iMac will also be able to take the AirPort card. Expect it on the next
generation PowerBook as well.
First, this means two Macs can immediately network without a hub -
great for synching files between your iBook and any other AirPort
equipped Mac. Best of all, it's not some slow 1.5 Mbps Skyline or 4
Mbps IrDA link (the latter with line-of-site limitations); AirPort is
10% faster than 10Base-T ethernet.
For the home or small office, a single US$300 AirPort hub will
support at least 10 Macs within 150' of the hub. For a lot of us, that
means we can visit the neighbors with our iBook connected to your home
network!
Steve Jobs even hinted at a 50 user hub during his Seybold
presentation.
For all the new Macs, you can drop in a $100 AirPort card for
immediate network access. One $300 hub supports 10 users, readily
connects to an existing ethernet network, and even provides a shared
56k connection to the internet. Ten users, $1,300 - or $130 per
user.
And the 50 user hub will probably be an even better value.
Best of all, no contractors installing wires, no too-short cables
when you rearrange an office, and no cables going bad. No rats nest of
cables, or at least no more than your network presently has.
Which brings us to an important point: AirPort can be easily added
to your existing network. Since there is no AirPort solution for older
Macs (yet), this means your existing wiring infrastructure at home or
in the office remains in use.
Conclusion
AirPort will slowly change the way we network our homes and offices.
Instead of compromising speed for ease of use, as Farallon's Skyline
does, we'll have ethernet speed and easy networking.
You'll still want to run busy servers and graphics workstations on
100Base-T ethernet, but for the rest, AirPort provides excellent
bandwidth and eliminates the cost of wires and wiring.
And if they come up with a way to use it with older Macs, I can get
the kids' computers out of my home office.
Networking has never been this easy.
Further Reading
