As long as networks have existed, there's been an almost insatiable thirst for more bandwidth. I remember an IBM salesman who was hawking 16-Mbps Token Ring chastising me for committing to Ethernet. After all, the "laws of physics" would prevent that technology from ever going faster than 10 Mbps. Thankfully, an apparent suspension of these physical laws has boosted Ethernet's capacity a thousandfold, much more if you factor in the benefits of wire-speed switches. While Ethernet is breaking speed records, wireless networks are limping along. Today's dominant wireless LAN technology, 802.11b, delivers a shared pipe of about 6 Mbps, taking into account a dated MAC design beholden to backward compatibility with the original 802.11 standard. Depending on traffic patterns and the physical proximity of client devices to access points, aggregate throughput can be much lower. Although no one can accurately predict how much more bandwidth we'll need on future wireless networks, my money is on lots and lots.
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