Wireless Network for Business

I use a wireless network for my small business but not as many computers as you have and from what I understand unless you have a commercial grade router with that many systems you will be running slowly if you try and use home / small office stuff. Aslo if you have a lot of thick walls this will dramatically cut down on distance and thoughputs.
That being said assuming you set up the encrytpion, disable the SSID broadcast and configure your firewall you should have no issue with either data tranmission or security.
We like the wireless becuase it allow folks to move around with their laptop. It also allows vendors / customers / service folks to come in a grag a connection very easily.
Personnaly I have a D-Link g wireless with a Hawking booster antenna along with 3 D-Link Repeater / boosters throught the office area and there are no dead spots.
I also run a Vonage VoIP phone set up hard wired out of the router and the call clarity is outstanding.
Hope this all helps.

 

If speed and security are your primary concerns, wired is always going to be ahead of wireless, no if's and's or but's.

Wireless has a couple of major advantages. Obviously, you don't need to wire it, and also its convenient when getting new machines, moving stuff, or when you bring your laptop in, etc.

You can always run both and get the advantages (and pitfalls if you do it wrong) of both. Thats what we do. It's basically a wired network, but we also have a wireless router which lets us get on the network from my PDA, laptops, guests, etc. The trick is to locking down the wireless so it's secure. I don't know that I'd run anything mission-critical over wireless, especially not in a business environment.

 

just ensure its locked down....

 

Business security should always use a wired connection, especially if all the workstations will be desktops. if they are laptops, then buy docking stations for the laptops and then plug the wire in to the docking station. Wireless is never as secure as wired connections. Regardless of how you set it up, the information is getting broadcast everywhere with the wireless connectin, whereas with a wire, there is 1 (for a network of your size) path the data can take from beginning to end.

As someone has suggested, there is always the possibility of running both a wired and a wireless connection, although that brings in a much higher level of complexity. You will want to make sure that the wireless connection is kept on a completely different subnet, and not all the two subnets to talk to each other to make sure you keep the wired connection as secure as possible, but adding that wireless connection will always open more security holes.

 

At this point in time wired is still ahead of wireless for any performance/security set up. For internet only its alright up to some point, but for running an application(s) from server its no good, way way too slow, I'm right now switching a company's network from wireless to wired. To run quickbooks only it took years on a G wireless setup (the db is > 100MB and 2 of the workstations are a distange > 150 feet from router) and just 3 workstations connecting to it.

 

go wired where you can, with a small 10/100 switch minimum - 100Mb/s dedicated Full-duplex (send and receive at 100Mb/s simultaneously), vs 40-50Mb/s shared half-duplex sucks. 802.11n is starting to hit the market, but being pre-standard stuff it's pretty well dedicate all your wireless gear to one vendor and keep your fingers crossed.

There's all sorts of funky things that can hit a wireless network - neighbours cordless phones, misbehaving microwaves, rogue access points. Save yourself the headache and go wired for the stuff that's not moving anywhere.