Chapter 7 Networks, Telecommunications and Mobile Technology

CHAPTER 7 NETWORKS, TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND MOBILE TECHNOLOGY
1. Explain the business benefits of using wireless technology?
Wireless fidelity (wi-fi) is a means of linking computers using infrared or radio signals. Wi-fi, or what is sometimes referred to as wireless LANs, represents only a small proportion of LANs in operation today, but rapidly growing proportion, Wi-fi technology has obvious advantages for people on the move who would like access to the Internet I airports, restaurants and hotels. Wi-fi is also gaining acceptance as a home or neighborhood network, permitting an assortment of laptop and desktop computers to share a single broadband access point to the Internet. Wireless LANs are also moving into the corporate and commercial world, especially in older buildings and confined spaces where it would be difficult or impossible to establish a wired LAN or where mobility is paramount. Even in newer buildings, wireless LANs are often being employed as overlay networks. In such cases, wi-fi is installed in addition to wired LANs so that employees can easily move their laptops from office to office and can connect to the network in places such as lunchrooms and patios. Public and private enterprises are always in pursuit of ideas that can make them more efficient and flexible, qualities that have a direct effective on both profitability and performance. As wireless networking moves into the mainstream, many organizations find that the addition of mobile network components offers undeniable business benefits, both direct and indirect.
Seen directly, wireless solutions can improve the connectedness of a workforce and enhance decision making by providing faster access to more current information. They can also be easier to maintain and configure, reducing the need for IT staff. Indirectly mobile solutions can improve worker satisfaction by providing easier, more flexible access options. They can even improve public perception, and introduce new, ‘cutting edge’ mechanisms for customer interaction.




2. Describe the business benefits associated with VoIP?
Voice over IP (VoIP) uses TCP/IP technology to transmit voice calls over Internet technology. As at February 2009, there were 269 VoIP providers in Australia and 10 in New Zealand. The telecommunications industry is experiencing great benefits from combining VoIP with emerging standards that allow for easier development, interoperability among systems and application integration. This is a big change for an industry that had relied on proprietary systems to keep customers paying for upgrades and new features. The VoIP and open standards combination has produced more choices, lower prices, and new applications.
Many VoIP companies typically offer calling within the country of origin for a fixed fee and a low per-minute charge for international calls. Since VoIP uses existing network and Internet infrastructure to route telephone calls more efficiently and inexpensively than traditional phone service, VoIP offers businesses significant cost savings, productivity gains and service enhancements.
Voice over IP systems promise to increase productivity while lowering costs--a win-win situation for businesses. The basis of this claim is the technology’s convergence of voice and data onto a single unified network. Users enjoy easier access to information, greater flexibility, and more advanced functionality. And the streamlined infrastructure is easier and cheaper to maintain.

Increased Productivity
Computer IP networks simply offer more agility than traditional wired phone circuitry. This efficiency translates into significant productivity gains for users in the following ways:

Access
Business VoIP users can take the office with them wherever they go, accessing the system via any internet connection. This anytime, anywhere access is crucial for a mobile workforce, accommodating workers stationed abroad, in transit, or simply telecommuting from home. With VoIP, users can check voicemail and email, access project data, and place calls--all over a single network, using a single communication device.

Integration
VoIP technology integrates with other communication technology, such as Customer Relationship Management software and Outlook. CRM integration is essential to increasing productivity across sales and support functions. The system can automatically retrieve customer data on an incoming call--thus service representatives have a caller’s history at their fingertips, and sales has the necessary information to target a pitch or track a customer’s order status. And everyone can benefit from unified messaging, which delivers voicemail messages to the user’s email inbox. Nortel’s CallPilot Unified Messaging, for example, combines voicemail, fax, and email into a single location accessible by internet or phone.

Flexibility
Business VoIP--especially hosted service--scales immediately to a business’ needs. Users can make changes to the system without relying on IT support, either by making changes directly on an Internet dashboard or by placing a call to a hosted service provider. The online interface allows users to set call-routing preferences, install new phones, and even add new functionality. Rearranging desktop phones is simply a matter of unplugging and moving them to another outlet--there’s no PBX circuit-switching or re-wiring necessary.

Functionality
Many advanced functions that are either a luxury or unavailable on PBX systems come standard with VoIP. These features include advanced call forwarding and electronic messaging, custom auto-attendant, three-way conferencing, videoconferencing, and Advanced Call Distribution (ACD) functions such as skills-based call routing.
Lower Total Cost of Ownership
Overall, the telecommunications industry estimates that businesses cut their telecommunications costs by about 30% when they switch to VoIP. Some of the factors in the cost savings include:

Lower startup costs
Business VoIP systems do not require the initial investment in PBX and other expensive equipment. Hosted service providers offer the lowest cost of entry; vendors such as Packet8 and Speakeasy offer monthly subscriptions designed for small, growing businesses. System hardware for a hosted plan amounts to no more than a set of IP phones and a voice gateway connected to the router.

Lower maintenance costs
A streamlined communications infrastructure dramatically reduces maintenance costs. Aside from the inherent benefit of consolidating communications into a single network, a data network is more flexible and cheaper to maintain than circuitry and phone lines. Hosted service providers take care of the VoIP system hardware off-premises, and on-premises systems feature user-friendly Web interfaces for easy maintenance.

Lower monthly phone bills
Since calls travel over the broadband connection rather than the PSTN, per-call and long-distance costs virtually disappear. BlueTrack, Inc. reported a 77% savings on monthly telecom bills when the company switched to Vocalocity. Hosted service providers such as Packet8 also lower costs by providing advanced functionality a la carte, allowing smaller businesses to invest only in the features they need.







3. Compare LANs and WANs?
Local Area Networks (LANs) and Wide Area Networks (WANs) are generic terms referring to two important basic types of networks. Let me try to summarize the characteristics of each, and then discuss their importance to the network engineer.
LAN/WAN Comparison
Local Area Networks (LANs) Wide Area Networks (WANs)
Most commonly: Ethernet, Token Ring, FDDI Leased lines, serial links, ISDN, X.25
Advantage: speed distance
Cost center: dense installation (about one interface per room) length of long-haul lines (about one interface per 100 miles)
Current Speed: 10-100 Mbps (mostly 10 Mbps) 0.01 to 45 Mbps (mostly clustered around 1 Mbps)
Common uses: File sharing Email and file transfer (including Web)
Common problems: Cable disruption by users Cable disruption by backhoes
Conceptually: A bunch of lines hooking users together A bunch of lines hooking cities together
The Internet can be thought of as a bunch of LANs interconnected by WANs. An average packet will run across a company's local Ethernet (LAN), up an ISDN or leased line or PPP link (WAN) to an Internet Service Provider. The ISP has Ethernet too (LAN), that transports the packet to the right router for delivery to a cross-country provider (WAN). The packet begins bouncing from one LAN site to another over WAN links.
A good networking design must answer both the LAN and WAN needs of its users. WAN links tend to operate with tight bandwidth margins, but many LAN applications depend on lots of surplus bandwidth. This is especially true of Ethernet, which begins to show performance degradation once you exceed about 20% "theoretical capacity", don't expect standard Ethernet to carry more than about 2 Mbps. A network's biggest startup cost is the labor needed to install it.




4. Describe RFID and how it can be used to help make a supply chain more effective?
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) continues to evolve as a major technology for tracking goods and assets around the world. RFID uses radio waves to identify 'things' automatically and in real time. For the supply chain and operations it provides increased levels of product and asset visibility. For example, it can help hospitals track and locate expensive equipment more quickly to improve patient care. Retailers are looking at using the technology to automatically receive shipments, and have greater visibility into the merchandize in the back rooms and on the store shelves.
The basic components of any RFID system include:
• Tags
• Readers
• Electronic Product Code
• Object Naming Service and EPC IS
• Privacy
Wal-Mart and the Department of Defense (DoD), along with some other major retailers, now require their suppliers to begin RFID-tagging pallets and cases that are shipped into their selected distribution centers and stores. These mandates are about to impact a large number of manufacturers and distributors around the world. While businesses are looking to use the technology in many scenarios across various industries, the retailer mandates are the main driving force behind the current interest in the technology.
Today, companies looking to adopt RFID have to deal with three key challenges:
1. RFID Hardware—Selecting tags (chips assembled with an antenna on a label), Readers, and antennae (devices that communicate with the tags); placing RFID tags on the products; placing and configuring readers and antennae in the stores, warehouses, and other locations.
2. Software Infrastructure—Capturing and managing data from the RFID Readers, integrating the data into decision support systems, and sharing data with trading partners for business collaboration.
3. Evolving business processes—Supporting finer granularity, more real-time product data, automating supply chain execution, and developing new business processes for exploiting RFID technology.
A simple Supply Chain consists of end-customers or consumers who buy goods or services from a retailer at a store or through other channels, such as an e-commerce website. The retailer may stock the goods and tools to provide the services from a wholesaler or a distributor. The distributor normally buys goods in large quantities from a manufacturer who makes the goods in a factory or a production facility. The manufacturer buys raw materials from suppliers. A typical supply chain has one or more of each of these entities. There could be multiple tiers of suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors. As materials move from the initial supplier in the chain to the end-customer, value and costs are added at each node. As you get closer to the retailer, the supply chain becomes more complex, with different products sourced from many different business partners; a retailer like Wal-Mart sells thousands of products sourced from thousands of direct suppliers.
Businesses strive to make their supply chains more efficient by improving the information sharing throughout the supply chain. A retailer has to constantly share its forecast, which is based on many factors such as sea to as wireless LANs, represen2C and advertising. At each node in the supply chain, forecast and actual sales from the next node are collected, and planning may be done on what and how much to make, which drives what and how much to buy from the previous node. Today large demands are placed on manufacturers, distributors, and retailers along the chain to maximize efficiency, minimize cost, and provide the best value to the end-customer. These suppliers are all learning how to apply new technologies within their sectors to improve business earnings. One such technology is RFID.
Many large retailers have a complex and labor-intensive receiving process. As products arrive from manufacturers, a physical scan is required to read the barcode on the pallet and on each case (box) on the pallet. What was received has to be checked against the Advanced Ship Notice already sent by the supplier, and any discrepancies must be identified and resolved. The pallet is then put away as is, or it is unloaded and individual cases are stored away. As the distribution center (DC) receives orders from stores, new pallets may need to be assembled by loading the cases from the storage facility and shipped to the stores. Large DCs have huge conveyor belts on which cases from unloaded pallets are placed and routed to appropriate store palletization areas. Many of these retailers now require their selected suppliers to RFID-tag pallets and cases. Their goal is to automate the receiving into DCs and stores, to achieve significant labor savings, reduced data-related errors, and improved product availability. However, for the suppliers, this is simply a cost of doing business, unless the retailers share detailed product movement information with suppliers.
While RFID can impact many different areas of the supply chain, the following section presents fictitious scenarios between a supplier, a manufacturer, and a retailer, and identifies various processes that can benefit from enabling RFID.


4. Identify the advantages and disadvantage of deploying mobile technology?
ADVANTAGES
• Increased employee productivity – Utilize mobile broadband connectivity to ensure the productivity and efficiency of remote or traveling employees
• Expanded wireless access – Employ Custom Network Solutions to enhance in-building wireless coverage for more flexible connectivity
• Increased revenue – Enable easy deployment of ATM locations with wireless ATM solutions for secure transaction processing and additional convenience
• Increased employee availability – Reach employees more efficiently with UC, combining multiple communications seamlessly into one device
• Reduced costs – Avoid costly setup and maintenances fees required of hard-wired phone or Internet
• Enhanced customer experience – Provide customers a higher level of service in real time, resulting in increased customer satisfaction with strengthened trust for a long-term relationship

DISADVANTAGES
• WIRELESS TELEPHONY APPLICATION DELAYED
• LACK OF COOKIES FOR SESSION MANAGEMENT
• PREMATURE ENCRYPTION ENDPOINT
• SMALL DOWNLOADABLE UNIT SIZE



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