Mobility affecting companies' wireless networks

The demand and system load presented by an influx of mobile devices is putting the squeeze on companies' wireless local area networks, according to a recent report from FierceMobileIT.

Increasingly employees are ditching their desktop phones and computers in favor of smartphones and tablets. After all, the devices offer robust computing power in a much more user-friendly form factor. Also, accessing the mobile internet using the company's WLAN is faster and cheaper than wireless services, the report said.

"Enterprise mobility has emerged as one of the key priorities for CIOs and IT managers across all geographies, and the growth of WLAN market revenues during the second quarter is a clear testament to that market dynamic," said Rohit Mehra, director of enterprise communications infrastructure at IDC, according to the report.

Moving forward, companies may want to include provisions for connecting to the WLAN in a mobile device management policy. Otherwise, future investments may be needed to bolster the network.

Reliance on the WLAN may continue as consumerization takes hold at many companies. According to Dimensional Research's latest poll, 87 percent of IT professionals acknowledged that employees use personally owned devices for work purposes.