Wireless or cable, which is best?

View all news 11/08/2009

This very much depends on your objectives.

For example if you want to avoid the cost of installing network cabling or you are restricted in terms of installing cable then wireless is a reasonable solution. However drawbacks with this include: temperamental performance and access as well as important security issues.

Most people know that wireless can be ‘secure or ‘insecure’ and the smart money would always set up a secure wireless. However even with secure wireless (there are multiple standards) a wireless security key can be cracked with relative ease, by someone sat in their car outside your office.

So what can you do? If you must use wireless then ensure the security key has as many characters as possible, and the characters are a mix of number, letters (upper and lower case) and even symbols.

Ideally though wireless should only be used as a last resort or switched on temporarily when required in a meeting room for example.

In summary cable provides a faster more reliable network connection without the security and performance risks of wireless.