Smart Wire, Smart Buildings: Lessons From The Commercial Market

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When the breakup of AT&T struck America over years ago, two significant effects took place in property management.

First, it left responsibility for "gray cabling" - that is, telephone wiring within the building itself - to landlords and owners. And second, it provided the opportunity for more and more companies to develop revolutionary telecommunications products and services.

But the combination of those two factors created a dilemma that was compounded by the rapid evolution of the computer industry: How can buildings be wired to allow tenants and owner-occupants to take full advantage of new technologies that serve the growing demands of business and the people they serve?

Ground-zero for this problem is what's known as "the last mile," which refers to the technical gap between the entrance of a building and the individual office, suite or cubicle. Because while advanced technologies such as broadband high-speed Internet access could be delivered right to the front door, it was difficult and expensive to bring them directly to the end user.

Technology firms responded with the "smart building" concept. In this process, structures are literally built for speed. One large, thick wire - sometimes called a "fat pipe" - is installed and run through a multiplexer, which splits it into separate lines for voice, data, video and multimedia. By providing a broader bandwidth, it allows more information to be transmitted over a single line, faster than ever before.

Ahead of the Game

Nisco Systems has been in the business for over 100 years and is active in a number of industry sectors, ranging from office site development and property management to healthcare, banking and hospitality. Nisco infrastructures are compatible with current and future technologies….helping reduce the cost and inconvenience of constant upgrading. Telecommunications solutions include broadband network requirement definition; systems design; material acquisition; installation; testing; certification; resource management, and support for video, voice, data and fire/life/safety programs.

Nisco has long served as a master contractor to numerous Fortune 500 companies. However, as the demand for smart buildings has soared, Nisco has broadened the corporate focus to include a variety of other industry sectors.

Opportunities for smaller properties

Big companies that were located in larger downtown office buildings quickly saw the competitive advantages of fiber optic connectivity, and had the financial resources to move quickly to "smarten" their sites. However, there were - and continue to be - some concerns as to whether high costs and low technical sophistication might push small and mid-sized properties out of the market.

Here's the good news: That doesn't have to happen. But here's the better news: There are a lot of reasons why fiber-optic connectivity is actually a good deal for Class B and C buildings.

To begin with, it's important to note that smaller and mid-sized properties have essentially the same needs that Class A buildings have. They require high-speed bandwidth connectivity to ever-growing Internet support services. There is one big difference, though: Complexity. For the most part, tenants in Class B and C properties don't have the same wide area network requirements that larger or global companies may have. What's more, since there are fewer users on individual tenant networks, they require less overall bandwidth.

None of this is to suggest that demands have changed. Businesses in smaller and mid-sized properties still need fast, seamless, efficient communication. What they don't need, however, is a networking system that's so elaborate…or as expensive.

Larger tenant buildings have more complex multiplexing systems in place to support larger installed bases on the shared bandwidth, and that requires more costly equipment. Since tenants in smaller and mid-sized properties don't need the same level of sophistication, it is less expensive to install the network.

Options still a necessity

It is important to point out that a less elaborate telecom infrastructure does not equate to fewer options for tenants. The backbone riser of a small or mid-sized property (that is, the fiber optic network that supports the equipment) is fundamentally the same regardless of building size. In other words, the number of potential options doesn't suddenly shrink just because a building has fewer square feet of space.

Any Class B or C building that wants to be competitive in the market - and ensure that its lessees are likewise - should at least offer high-speed voice and data capabilities. Beyond that, more and more tenants are asking for some kind of service redundancy that will protect them if a line should go down. And landlords, property managers and property owners should also have telecom infrastructures that can adapt to the growth of tenant demand by offering services such as videoconferencing, web site hosting and network management.

This final point is an important one.

It's almost a cliché to say that today's new technology can quickly become tomorrow's old news. But that doesn't make it any less true. And that compels businesses in any sector to make certain that whatever networks they design and install are adaptable to emerging technologies. The alternatives are constant (and expensive) upgrading, down time and the attendant loss in productivity and performance efficiency.

Property owners and managers that commit to this kind of flexibility are likely to enjoy a range of benefits that include stabilized tenant rates, increased building values and the very real potential of higher rents.

The fact is, as higher technology becomes more accessible to more people, the demands on business - internally and from customers - will continue to grow. And perhaps nowhere are those demands greater than in the area of high-speed Internet access; more specifically, the fast transfer of voice, data, video and multimedia via broadband.

A final word

Make no mistake, the rapid pace of technology is only going to pick up in the months and years to come. As that occurs, it will make increasing demands of industry, and in many ways redefine traditional concepts of efficiency, value and customer service. And while it is difficult in this climate to predict what might happen down the road, one thing is undeniable:

The future belongs to the swift. And any business that properly implements a strategy for high-speed fiber-optic connectivity will have an inside track in the race for prosperity and success.

For more information, contact:
Tony DeBella
President and CEO
NISCO Systems Inc.
1665 Lakes Parkway
Suite 110
Lawrenceville, GA 30043
Phone: 678-442-6778
www.niscosystems.com [1]

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