Broadband boom: Network of the future
Business network tips to align your IT infrastructure with business goals, increase productivity, and going wireless
Published: April 24, 2006
By Howard Baldwin
In the next five years, expect an integrated network that makes exchanging information easier and helps mobile workers stay connected.
In Summary:
| • | The emerging "converged" network infrastructure must align with your business goals. |
| • | Consider how applications such as unified messaging can increase productivity and reduce information technology (IT) costs. |
| • | As wireless advancements enable employees to be more mobile, deploy options that can help them control access. |
For years, technology vendors have been trying to figure out how to combine voice and data networks, with a goal of delivering multiple communications services over one network at lower costs. The good news: They have finally solved the problem. The crux of the issue was figuring out how to transmit voice communications over the Internet, using its traditional protocols, while maintaining the reliability people expect in phone conversations. After all, if it takes a few extra seconds to transmit an e-mail, no one cares. But if words drop out of a phone conversation, that is simply unacceptable.
Now that they have arrived, converged networks offer many advantages. For the midsize company, it is less complex to manage a single unified network than two separate ones. Computing equipment such as servers is less expensive than PBX (for public branch exchange) devices. And communication applications, including e-mail, fax and voice mail, can share a single e-mail box. Wireless communications are merging into this same unified network, for similar reasons of network design and simplicity of management.
But what does this integrated network of the future mean for business in terms of new applications and productivity improvements for your workforce? And what policies do you need to implement so that employees are accessible if necessary, but not overloaded by communications 24/7?
Business network tips: Business alignment with network convergence
When working with your information technology (IT) department on the strategy for your current and future network infrastructure, consider carefully your long-term business goals, says Scott Gass, senior principal consultant at Santa Clara, California-based INS, a Microsoft Gold Certified partner.
For instance, when you look at wireless technologies, think about how they can:
| • | make your organization more efficient by giving employees the ability to tote laptops and personal digital assistants (PDAs) to meetings and have connectivity |
| • | allow physicians to fill prescriptions or order lab tests more quickly because they can do it from a handheld computer at a patient's bedside |
| • | enable a police officer to transmit a traffic violation at the roadside rather than transcribing it later |
"Look at convergence in the context of improving business processes," says Gass, comparing future applications for voice communications to the way e-mail has transformed the way people work from dawn to dusk. For instance, new "push-to-talk" online chat capabilities that some companies are embedding in their e-commerce sites allow customers and prospects to get answers to their questions while they're considering a purchase. The goal: a faster transaction, and one that the customer actually completes.
Better connectivity, new applications
The network of the future will also bring speedy advances in wired network technology, moving from what's known as Ethernet (10 megabits per second) to Fast Ethernet (100 mbps) to Gigabit Ethernet (1000 mbps). That means a lurch forward for applications that require a lot of bandwidth. Take a manufacturer with a headquarters location and two remote sites. "As we move toward gigabit networking, it will become economically viable for a midsize company that may only have 30 users at a remote site to give them [faster] data access," explains Kerry Mann, president of Mississauga, Ontario-based Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Mantralogix.
Some of the new applications include:
| • | Unified messaging
Simply put, this means having a single inbox for all your messages, whether they're e-mail, fax or voice mail. You can see all your messages at once and respond to those most important (as opposed to voice mail, which requires you to listen to messages sequentially). You can also forward a voice-mail message from your inbox the same way you would an e-mail attachment. |
| • | Desktop videoconferencing
You will no longer have to go into a special room with videoconferencing equipment; instead you will be able to connect right from your desktop PC. |
| • | Directories
You can see an updated company directory on your Internet Protocol (IP) phone's display (as opposed to relying on a paper-based list). Hotels that deploy IP telephony can also set up directories from a single company to appear on in-room phones so that guests can quickly contact colleagues. |
| • | Time clock and attendance
Billable professionals and punch-the-clock workers can use a telephone to record their hours. |
Presence and personalization
To help people manage their availability (since networking advances enable people to have connections all the time, from any device, anywhere), the network of the future will understand the concepts of presence and personalization. To set up presence, you would update a personal profile indicating where you are, whether you are available, and the best way to reach you (through e-mail, phone or instant messaging, for example). You can also indicate which people may reach you at certain times—you might have different rules for your boss versus other co-workers.
"In the unified communication environment, people will be able to easily control, manage and use [the network]," says Ed Kudey, senior manager for solutions development at San Jose, California-based Cisco Systems. "It will be intelligent and rules-based."
For executives who need to stay in touch but want to take their kids to a baseball game, too, this is a boon. For employees whose boss thinks a paycheck entitles him to contact them whenever he wants, it is not so much fun. Not surprisingly, deploying the network of the future is not just about the technology. But in all likelihood, this emerging network will enable your people to be more productive and efficient than ever before.
Howard Baldwin first wrote about attempts at unified messaging for PC Computing and Macworld back in the mid-1990s and is glad to see that it is finally arriving.
