As you move your office into the modern age, with more and more electronic devices proving essential to the system, you'll be anxious to get rid of all those messy cables getting in everyone's way. The most common solution to this is to switch to a wireless network. Problems can arise, however, when people expect to be able to treat a wireless network the same way as they treated their old one.

Wireless network problems are now out in the open, a sufficiently common subject in the technical media that providers have stopped pretending it's trouble-free to switch to a wireless network. Problems with device compatibility, information transfer speed and security are all common complaints. It's easy enough to work around most wireless network problems, but only if you know what you're doing. Fortunately, there are an increasing number of online resources dedicated to helping you solve your wireless network problems.

Unique wireless network problems include incompatibility between different pieces of electronic office equipment. These are especially common if you're trying to run devices made by different manufacturers on the same wireless network. Problems arise because these devices use different communication protocols. You can usually work around these wireless network problems by routing communications through other devices, but this may cost you money.

Even when everything is communicating smoothly on your wireless network, problems can arise with the speed of data transfer. To put it simply, you cannot expect data to travel as quickly across a wireless network as they would across a wired one. For most office communications, they'll still travel fast enough, so that you won't notice any real difference with your wireless network. Problems are only likely to crop up if you're trying to transmit big files such as streaming video.

The most notorious wireless network problems are problems with security. Because it is open, anybody can try to hack in to a wireless network. Problems of this sort, however, are only a serious risk if you fail to install appropriate security software such as a good firewall. This is the sort of thing you should be providing for your office network anyway, regardless of specific wireless network problems.