In This Issue: Cisco Aironet 1040/1140/1250 Series Power Injector | What does 5G mean for business networks? | News to Start Your Day
Happy Friday! Today is National Fishing Day and that seems like the perfect way to kick off the weekend festivities of celebrating dad! Just make sure you let dad catch the biggest fish! We hope you have a fun and relaxing weekend!
The CK Daily – Rhythms & Reflection
Happy Friday folks! I’m on vacation this week, so I’m writing this daily post from a completely different city. We’ve had this trip planned for a few months now and are enjoying our family time! So while I’m away from the office, this means I’m not in my home office going through my normal daily rhythms each day. And I’m missing those!
I had a mentor tell me once that he took time off every quarter. He found that just like seasons changes every 13 weeks or so (some seasons in Georgia are way shorter, like spring), he also needed to take time off every quarter. This was not only a time to relax & recharge, but also a time to reflect. I didn’t fully understand that statement then, but it’s starting to make more sense as the years pass. I now realize the power of not doing my daily rhythms for a few days. By the end of a few days, I start to yearn for it again. I’m also able to evaluate the rhythms for effectiveness. Once I’m back into the swing of things, I pick right back up with the rhythms that have the most impact, and I change those that don’t.
What things have you learned recently by taking time to reflect?
Chris
Product Spotlights & Updates:
Happy Friday! Today we’re introducing you to the magic of the Power Injector. These devices provide you flexibility in setting up your access points, by providing a way to power them with an Ethernet cable. This is especially useful if your network does not have a PoE switch or enough PoE budget to run additional access points.
Instead of replacing your switch or buying an additional PoE switch, you can deploy power injectors with access points where needed.
The AIR-PWRINJ4 is specifically designed to power up Cisco Access Points including, but not limited to the 1040, 1140, 1250, 3500, and 3600 series Access Points.
Pick one up today for 15% off!
What does 5G mean for business networks? – CK Learning Center
There is a lot of technology generating excitement for more applications than we could hope to name. One central theme to virtually all of that technology is an increased demand on data and need of higher bandwidth for connectivity. More devices than ever are actively communicating, and they are placing massive burdens on existing infrastructure. Copper networks and 4G wireless have a shelf life. Within the next couple of years, they will no longer be able to service standard demands — much less cutting-edge applications. Ultimately, we all need a network that is built for the new age of connectivity. That network will run on 5G.
What Is A 5G Network?
The name itself refers to fifth generation mobile wireless networking. In effect, it is an overall upgrade to every aspect of performance in mobile networks. It’s designed for faster data rates, more connectivity and traffic, lower power demands and lower deployment costs. It’s still largely in a developmental phase. Components of 5G networking are ready to go to market, but large scale networks are still primarily in testing phases. Because of that, raw data on 5G performance is a mix of practical and theoretical.
5G aims to achieve data rates up to 20 Gbps. Early iterations might be slower, but 5G is intended to provide Gigabit or faster wireless connections. It can also operate with a theoretical 1ms latency. In order to achieve these impressive numbers, it will largely be built on optical transceivers and a solid fiber backbone.
How Is it Different From 4G?
Aside from the raw performance improvements, 5G is embracing a fundamentally different design philosophy. 4G and its predecessors are designed around massive towers. Any individual tower is intended to handle many thousands of users and transmit across kilometers of air. 5G is completely abandoning this approach.
The primary design of the new networks incorporates far more network nodes. By attaching optical transceivers to fiber networks, 5G wireless can create coverage that serves far fewer users per node. Ultimately, this decentralizes the 5G hardware. The smaller, faster devices can be mounted with greater freedom than traditional cellular towers, and the result is a more robust, scalable network.
You can loosely compare this design to other modern, decentralized concepts. IoT and blockchain both try to connect as many different users as freely as possible, and 5G is being engineered to support those demands.
The Bottom Line on 5G
When it comes to business infrastructure, there are key takeaways from this 5G overview. First, 5G is an inevitable necessity. Traffic demands are only growing, and 4G is already up against a wall. Any applications that have to cover more area than is economical with Wi-Fi need to already consider moving towards 5G.
Another huge takeaway is 5G’s reliance on fiber infrastructure. This isn’t entirely new; 90 percent of internet data is carried on fiber optic lines already. The difference is that 5G aims to reduce the distance between cellular relays and the fiber backbone. For your infrastructure, that means that a fiber network is key to any system that spans more than 500m in a single direction.
The last takeaway is equally important. 5G runs on optical transceivers. These use far less power than slower alternatives, and it means that large networks with many nodes will be more affordably served by 5G than older technology. The hybrid of fiber and optical components gives network designers far more freedom. The idea that a faster, more reliable, large-scale wireless network will also be more affordable might seem like a pipe dream, but that’s the promise of 5G. Just keep in mind that it only saves money after you have access to fiber-optics infrastructure.
Continue reading the rest of the article from the CK Learning Center here.
Today’s News to Start Your Day:
- Roku has out-executed larger companies and leaned on an unusual corporate culture to gain a $45 billion valuation. Roku founder Anthony Wood is now spending much of his time thinking about the company’s content ambitions.
- The coronavirus pandemic could boost newer modes of transportation in China, like making autonomous driving more mainstream. The Covid-19 outbreak accelerated the commercialization of autonomous aerial vehicles — or driverless drones — which were used to transport goods, medical supplies and even passengers to and from quarantine zones.
- Burger King’s new chicken sandwich, the Ch’King, marks a shift in its menu strategy. Burger King is shifting its menu focus from promotional to foundational to unlock the next level of growth.
- The biggest change to Microsoft’s Office documents in decades is coming to life soon, as the company’s Fluid framework arrives in Microsoft Teams, OneNote, Outlook, and Whiteboard. Instead of tables, graphs, and lists that are static and bound to specific documents, Fluid components are collaborative modules that exist across different applications. They will begin showing up in Microsoft Teams first this summer, embeddable in meetings and chats.
- Samsung is ending sales of the Galaxy Z Fold 2 in the US, but it’s unclear if the device is entirely being discontinued at this point.