The biggest problem with wireless networks has been the fact that we are dealing with a limited bandwidth broadcast medium (that and security, which is a completely different story, though not completely unrelated). The best technology widely available at this time is IEEE 802.11a & g (Wi-Fi) which both work at a maximum rate of 54Mbps (though perceived data rate is much lower and also the data rate available per user when there are a number of users sharing the channel as is typically the case in any network). Therefore they are nowhere close to current Ethernet (100Mbps/1Gps). Moreover, the current brand of Ethernet is not exactly a broadcast technology but a switched technology, therefore not all users share the 100 Mbps or 1 Gbps (the sharing is quite complicated and depends essentially on the switch - I'll discuss this in a future post).
The solution seems to be the upcoming IEEE 802.11n standard which makes use of MIMO technology to achieve much higher bandwidths (claims are being made for upto >500 Mbps, but that for me literally means that we can expect decent 100/200 Mbps performance). That is going to be an interesting step towards reducing wires.
In related news, one of the things that limits any Wireless technology is power, and with Laptops etc we eventually have a situation where we need wires for power. However a group at MIT seems to be coming up with a solution to that problem. If this comes through then this really is the step towards a wireless world. Read about it here.
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