Required skills

With the education and corporate market building a mix of wired and wireless networking environments, partners need to be prepared, Nortel's Kleemeyer said. The vendor recently hosted a national road show in a bid to educate partners in the world of wireless.

"The skills needed are network and wireless design," he said. "There's some thought and science to ensure the data and multimedia applications are engineered correctly. Ensure the design and management is as simple as possible."

Other useful skills include installation, administration and solution planning. These are key topics in the company's four-day intensive lab training. When pitching wireless mesh, there are a few additional skill sets to master.

"The technology is similar to WLAN, based on 802.11 standards, but it has a greater focus on engineering outdoor environments," Kleemeyer said. "We're helping partners position WLAN versus wireless mesh, or together in the same site, determining different usage environments and key verticals."

While WLAN technology is not a new game, he said partners were revisiting it because of the security enhancements and performance boosts.

"We're encouraging partners to take WLAN out to customers," Kleemeyer said. "It has been around a long time, but there's renewed interest at the moment. Security issues of the past have been resolved, so customers can be as confident of a wireless network as a wired one."

Wireless Tech sales and application consultant, Eric Gagnaux, said wireless mesh was a big opportunity for resellers, with projects up for grabs in the residential space, as well as in education, manufacturing and mining.

While skilling up in wireless mesh requires some fancy footwork in terms of coverage, design and installation, the bigger challenge is getting customers to overcome the initial hurdle of higher price tags compared with traditional wireless networking equipment.

Reasons to upgrade

Once price is overcome, customers see the benefits of moving towards mesh, and are particularly happy with the fact the technology supports video, voice and data simultaneously.

"Schools are looking to upgrade the network with mesh, which gives them more flexibility, scalability and all the benefits of avoiding cable," he said. Healthcare was also open to mixing and matching wireless mesh and Wi-Fi, he said.

Like Gagnaux, D-Link's Famularo said the wireless mesh market was a hot topic with partners and training was in high demand.

"We're demonstrating to partners that the capabilities of wireless are far greater than having an access point," he said.

Smarter, more reliable networks that self-heal and self-diagnose, at longer distances were in demand. The trick to driving mass market adoption was to cut out the complexity, he said.

In a bid to simplify the process of setting up a WLAN, Nortel's Kleemeyer said partners should add a number of software tools to the selling and consulting arsenal.

"A WLAN planning tool helps partners input floor diagrams, determine RF coverage, the number of access points and proper locations," he said.

Complexity was a major stumbling block for both customers and resellers, Open Networks marketing manager, Nigel Clark, said. As such, the company has rolled out an auto install tool, dubbed iConnectWLAN, which automates the process, and helps a reseller eliminate the installation and configuration hassles.

In addition to being a helpful tool for resellers selling to the business or consumer market, it will also help ISPs tap into high-growth wireless networking and reduce technical support costs.

Given wireless networking can be highly complex and difficult to understand, resulting in several calls to the ISP for technical support, Clark said many ISPs had been reluctant to support wireless modems for fear of being stung by rapidly escalating helpdesk costs.

Software tools let a reseller examine the operating system, customer settings, hardware components and IP addressing and then proceeds to complete the broadband installation, which includes setting up email, browser and desktop shortcuts. The tool then established the security on the wireless network and generated SSID and other security settings, he said.

D-Link's Famularo agreed the wireless scene was complex and partners needed a select set of skills deciphering wireless administration and security. Resellers should consider brushing up on switching, wireless and security skills, and sit exams to obtain certifications.