A Cisco executive said that complexity, insecurity, and other problems with Wi-Fi are past: With current products, companies can roll out Wi-Fi and bask in their increasing effectiveness and efficiency. Workers with Wi-Fi spent 1.75 hours more per day in 2001 (than before 2001, I gather) connected to company networks, while that number grew to 3.5 in 2003.
I hear these anecdotes and studies often, especially in companies like Starbucks or McDonald's which are having Wi-Fi deployed for them for public purposes, but are reaping the benefits of having their dispersed managerial and repair workforce online without returning to a main office.
This article covers a speech given at this week's Wi-Fi Planet conference in Santa Clara, and the writer sounds frustrated: Proof that running a Wi-Fi network isn't all that straightforward was given at the Wi-Fi Planet Conference & Expo itself, where the WLAN was intermittently available.
Actually, the problem is that there's no simple way to have 200 separate Wi-Fi networks running in a small place and coordinate frequencies. Given that many vendors are demonstrating products that generate Wi-Fi networks, as opposed to just use Wi-Fi networks, this is to expected.
(In the future, if 802.11a/g devices proliferate, I'd expect a trade show to demand some clear 802.11a channels and knock vendors off the air who use those channels for anything but show business and Internet access.)