Office Network Planning: Connect Your Business To The Future!

Featured article by Bob Gorman, Independent Author

Office network planners face many challenges. The Internet is now for merchants a major component of daily business and for consumers an increasingly convenient market for products and services. Telecommuting is on the rise as employers seek to lower costs and workers seek home-based alternatives to traditional commutes that consume so much unproductive time. Network planning for the constantly increasing data traffic driven by these developments should consider wiring hardware and computing software for foreseeable future needs.

Voice/Video/Data

Installing a new phone system or upgrading a local area network (LAN) is a good time to rewire an office to support developing voice, video, and data communication services. Rewiring need not be an ordeal nor require a major capital investment as in most cases it can continue to use ordinary copper wiring.

As the pace of network innovation constantly accelerates, fiber optic is the only medium durable and flexible enough to meet foreseeable needs. Most important is fiber optic’s great carrying capacity for high bandwidth over long distances. Electromagnetic disturbances, interference signal emissions, and grounding faults are not problems with fiber cabling.

In modern cabling infrastructures, fiber optic material forms the primary trunk and secondary distributor areas. The tertiary end-point areas at subscriber terminals use devices with low-cost copper connections. Users can continue with standard connections to which they are accustomed while the fiber optic material remains remote from them in the delivery system. In this way does an intelligent combination of fiber and copper facilitate construction of high-performance networks with considerable cost benefits.

Multimedia Cabling

Most voice, video, and data traffic travels on separate networks which many organizations, as their needs for online access to information and services increase, look to integrate into a single, multimedia network to carry all traffic at cost savings. For such a transition, new products and technologies must increase bandwidth or carrying capacity so a single network can carry combined traffic efficiently and reliably.

Eventually, video, voice, and data signals will combine into single multimedia networks, but until then separate wiring will remain the norm. Fortunately, with the advent of Fast Ethernet, twisted-pair wiring can deliver data and voice services to desktops, each of which should have a multi-purpose jack with several wiring terminal types for various services and a spare unshielded twisted pair cable for future use.

LAN Wiring

LAN workstations should link to a central Ethernet hub. For small networks, unmanaged hubs are sufficient. With hubs, stations can connect and disconnect from the LAN without disturbing other users.

Copper wiring, which can deliver high data rates but is sensitive to cable distance, is fine for most small LANs. Fiber can deliver high data rates over long distances but is generally not cost-effective in connecting LAN workstations, and fiber in the network trunk or backbone is economical for high data rates over long distances only.

Internet Connectivity

Routers are for Internet connectivity. They carry LAN broadcasts to remote outside destinations. Most important in selection of a router is the external connection it supports. For small offices with no need for 24-hour Internet connectivity, integrated services digital network routers are adequate. For offices that need 24-hour connectivity, Frame Relay is a better option, and for higher speed connectivity digital subscriber lines are best.

Voice Wiring

As a general rule, six-wire cables should go to every telephone station. Many phone systems use only two wires per station, but others use the remaining four wires for signaling and power supply. Voice circuits, which never carry high-frequency signals, are less demanding than are data for wiring. There is discussion about a new standard that would bundle voice circuits into an Ethernet for simultaneous voice/LAN service on a single cable, and that development may be a future trend, but for now there is not much equipment for this proposal, and what little is available is very costly in comparison to data-only Ethernet adapters.

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing shares resources for convergence of infrastructure and economies of scale over network. Cloud resources usually are not only shared by multiple users but also dynamically reallocated to meet shifting demands. A cloud facility that serves European users during their business hours may reallocate the same resources to serve North American users during theirs. In moving to a cloud the network becomes an operating expense rather than a traditional capital expense. Rather than buy dedicated hardware and depreciate it, the user partakes of a shared cloud infrastructure and pays according to usage.

Proponents claim that cloud computing avoids upfront infrastructure costs and allows users to focus instead on their businesses projects with less maintenance costs and more ability to adjust resources rapidly to meet unexpected demands. Cloud users typically pay as they go, a model that can lead to unexpectedly high charges, however, when administrators are inattentive.