The Frustrations Of A Wireless Network Printer
At its very core the concept behind a wireless network printer should be a great idea. The idea that your network printer home can be anywhere within sight of a wireless access point should bring smiles of joy to any IT administrator. However a wireless network printer is only as strong as the wireless network it is on and with there still being major issues with implementing an effective wireless network the idea of the worry free wireless network printer is probably still several months, maybe years, away from being a reality.
A wireless network is still considered a luxury by most corporate standards and the advances in some areas are a little slow. One primary concern with a wireless network is consistency of quality. If you ever talk to someone that has a wireless network at their job there is a good chance that they will have horror stories of constantly lost connections and data lost to some vast wasteland that the wireless network seems to have created.
So many things affect a wireless network connection that keeping a signal strong and reliable is a large concern. Now imagine using a wireless network printer and consistently losing large and important print jobs in this kind of environment.
Security is another huge concern of a wireless network and most IT administrators will work diligently trying to secure the network from outside hackers. The problem with this is that wireless network printer technology has not advanced very far in the security area and one of the weakest points in any wireless network is still the wireless network printer. Keeping unwanted people out of a corporate network is a very big deal and as long as the wireless network printer is seen as a weak point of the network there will be a problem convincing people to use the wireless network.
Set And Reset
Because of their inherent instability the wireless network printer can have a tendency to reset itself on the network from time to time and this can cause a lot of problems for users and IT administrators. When any device resets on a wireless network that means that it drops the connection and the re-establishes that connection afterwards. Print jobs get lost, people get frustrated, and more fuel is added to the fire that brews against the wireless network printer.
A wireless network is still seen as a potential risk for many people and until the technology is stabilized it will be some time before corporate America is able to connect to their network from anywhere in the building.
