Will The New iPad Kill Your Company’s Network?

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Brocade's survey on the impact of the new iPad
Brocade's survey on the impact of the new iPad

Will the new iPad gobble up so much bandwidth that it will cause serious network congestion and performance issues for small businesses or even major enterprises? Are businesses networks up to meet ever increasing demands of wireless devices and mobile professionals?

These are questions that networking vendor Brocade put to its customers recently, specifically highlighting the launch of the new iPad. It found that half of all businesses think that the new iPad to could add to the number of wireless devices on their networks and possibly increase the overall amount of traffic.

When asked “What impact do you foresee the upcoming iPad 3 launch having on the number of devices accessing your network?” A third of respondents said that they expect the number of devices and traffic to increase and 17% said that they were unsure but expected the results to be “difficult to manage.” The remaining fifty percent said they expected traffic and the number of devices to remain about the same.

Asked if they were concerned about the anticipated growth of mobile bandwidth demands over the next four years and their ability to handle that increase, more than three quarters (76%) of Brocade’s customers said that they were – 19% were extremely concerned while 57% were somewhat concerned. To meet those challenges 56% are replacing or upgrading parts of their networks while 6% were planning to replace their entire network.

Looking back over the past three years, slightly more than half (54%) said that they had made improvements to their networks specifically because of the increased demands placed on networks by smartphones and tablets (one can logically assume that this means iPads as the iPad still owns the business tablet space with 96% of the market).

The results of the survey very clearly point to the fact that increased mobile adoption is requiring most businesses to consider additional investment in their infrastructure – and that iPad use is considered to be a key factor in that need. That said, they also show that most businesses feel equipped to handle the increasing challenges.

It’s also worth noting that the survey found just under a third of employers (31%) now offer BYOD programs and more than a third (38%) have yet to offer a BYOD program but allow users to connect their personal mobile devices to the network. The remaining 31% ban the use of all personal devices on the network.

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