July 19, 2005

Making Your Slow Network Faster

10Mbs Ethernet networks are making way for 100Mbps networks. 100Mps networks are making way for 1Gps (Gigabyte) BUT WAIT. Do you really need to updrade that network, will it really be worth it for your business?

Tech Web writes One of the biggest reasons for cranking up network speeds is to accommodate the delivery of rich media like video and voice. However, Gittens says that, if you have no immediate plans for VoIP, or a need for video, then you probably don't need to be looking for a faster network.

Instead of uprading your network consider doing things like splitting traffic into voice and data. Check your network cards and see if each network card is taking advantage of 100Mbps or is it only a 10Mbps network card?

Tech Web continues The bottom line is that, far from delivering a networking ne plus ultra, speed is often a bit oversold. Just as it would be overkill to drive to the convenience store in a Ferrari for a quart of milk, a super-fast gigabit network is, in many cases, completely unnecessary for many organizations, despite what Gittens sees as vendor-driven hype.

"The average mid-sized company won't be installing a videoconferencing server," he says. "Most networks are still strictly or mainly data, and data can run quite comfortably on a 100 Mbps network, despite what the hype says."

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