good article about (retro-) fitting buildings for multiple wireless
services
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http://news.com.com/Always+on+wireless+Like+flicking+a+switch/
2100-1039_3-5857104.html?tag=st_lh
'Always on' wireless: Like flicking a switch
By Stacey Higginbotham
http://news.com.com/Always+on+wireless+Like+flicking+a+switch/
2100-1039_3-5857104.html
Story last modified Fri Sep 09 13:17:00 PDT 2005
An in-building wireless system recently installed in University of
Chicago's state-of-the-art Comer Children's Hospital has spawned at
least one nagging problem for Eric Yablonka, the facility's chief
information officer.
Enamored with how the technology makes their jobs easier, hospital
staffers keep bugging the vice president for information technology
at the University of Chicago Health System to retrofit the other 70
buildings in the system similarly. "Our nurses love it," Yablonka
says. "This makes their lives easier and patient floors quieter. It
was the absolute right thing for us to do."
The pediatric hospital's new wireless infrastructure aggregates two-
way radio, public-safety radio, paging, Wi-Fi and cellular networks
into one system that runs throughout the building, augmenting signals
with antennas spread around each of its six floors.
In-building wireless utilities--so named because, like electricity
and water, they are an "always on," integral part of a structure--are
drawing growing interest from businesses that want a unified and
flexible wireless system. The technology also creates a foundation
for users to easily implement new applications, such as radio
frequency identification (RFID) tags, that may be needed later and
can be installed without further retrofitting.
A host of companies, mostly start-ups, have emerged to feed the
burgeoning demand for in-building wireless systems, including the
likes of InnerWireless, LGC Wireless, Spotwave Wireless, Powerwave
Technologies and MobileAccess.
The systems that InnerWireless and its competitors are installing
enable users to wander through a building and still maintain a strong
cell phone signal--increasingly important for 3G services, whose data
rates depend largely upon signal strength--on the Wi-Fi network. The
system would even help public-safety workers communicate inside
stairwells in an emergency. Instead of using a mishmash of devices
and networks, a building is designed for wireless from the beginning,
or retrofitted so that all of these capabilities can be supported on
one system.
"Wireless...is just like heating and cooling, lights, plumbing and
electricity."
--Ed Cantwell, CEO, InnerWireless
Today, roughly 15 percent of commercial buildings have some form of
wireless utility, says Lance Wilson, director of wireless research at
technology research firm ABI Research.
But Ed Cantwell, president and CEO of InnerWireless, which installed
Comer Children's Hospital's in-building wireless utility, argues that
wireless systems will soon become as critical to the workplace as
running water. "If you ask someone what the (return on investment) on
plumbing is, they couldn't tell you, because it's just part of what
the building needs to survive," Cantwell says. "Wireless is like
that. People can debate if wireless is a utility, but I contend that
it already is just like heating and cooling, lights, plumbing and
electricity."
Some might view Cantwell's characterization as overly optimistic.
Jeff Hipschman, a senior vice president at commercial real-estate
broker CB Richard Ellis, says most of his clients do not expect a
building to provide wireless access, though many smaller tenants
would probably be interested. As for the larger tenants, they
typically want to tailor their own wireless systems, he says.
Yet there are several examples of recent construction projects that
include in-building wireless. New York's Mandarin Oriental Hotel,
part of the newly built Time Warner Center, and the new Bobcat Arena
in Charlotte, N.C., each have a wireless utility, designed primarily
to help transmit public-safety signals and boost cell phone signals.
David Heckaman, who designed the wireless systems for both projects,
says the challenge in getting this type of infrastructure in place is
making builders aware of its advantages, such as cost savings that
result from installing unified systems in large buildings and
business opportunities that it can open up. Heckaman, who owns
Heckaman Group, says builders typically bid out each communication
system to individual players such as cable, telephone and data firms,
which then install their own technologies.
"This will change our world like the Internet did 10 years ago."
--Eric Yablonka, CIO, Comer Children's Hospital
While each of those firms will handle some aspect of the wireless
infrastructure, they rarely work together to create a unified
utility. That's where Heckaman comes in. He works with existing
wireless utility providers and attempts to show builders and
executives the benefits of putting all of their wireless systems into
one pipe--a form of systems integration.
The ability to adapt to future needs is a key selling point: "All the
benefits are not tangible today," Heckaman says. "Because things
happen so quickly in technology, this can allow you to offer RFID
tracking, cellular tracking, and other technologies that may not even
exist yet through the pipe."
The ability to offer new services is one reason Yablonka chose to
install a wireless utility. He envisions being able to use cellular
technology to track patients in the hospital as well as send them
reminders, once they're home, about medication and appointments.
There's also the security issue. Yablonka says Wi-Fi, which is the
common wireless broadband technology found in homes and offices,
simply isn't secure enough for transmitting medical data. Using a
more dependable and more secure cellular system would be a way to
address that issue, he argues. As for other options, Yablonka expects
to see uses for in-building wireless that he can't even imagine yet.
"Wireless is getting faster and faster, and its utility is increasing
all the time," he says. "This will change our world like the Internet
did 10 years ago. When I think about the next few years, I can see
managing 2,000 to 3,000 cell phones and RFID tags, and I need a way
to manage that ecosystem of devices that is secure and cost-effective."
A key benefit of installing an in-building system is increased
employee productivity. That's what drove Applied Materials, the
world's largest semiconductor equipment maker, to install them in
more than 100 of its buildings in 13 countries.
John Hoffman, general manager of the Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip
equipment maker's Etch group, says the move enables employees to use
laptops or corporate cell phones in any Applied building around the
globe. Workers also can rely on the push-to-talk function on cell
phones to communicate, a particularly valuable function in industrial
buildings. "It's very simple to move people and assets around when
they are not hard-wired," Hoffman says, "And the walkie-talkie
functions are good for work groups on our manufacturing floors."
While he acknowledged that a return on investment on in-building
wireless systems might be tough to calculate, Hoffman says the
results have benefited Applied. "In this case, individual
productivity is difficult to measure, so we have anecdotal evidence,
but not quantitative evidence, that this is good for us," he says.
But broad-based in-building systems aren't for everyone. In general,
they make sense for buildings with 300,000 square feet or more,
Heckaman says. For companies with smaller operations, however,
installing secured wireless routers for Wi-Fi connectivity might be
more cost-effective.
Hoffman also says companies must consider how always-on connectivity
might affect corporate culture. At Applied, one unintended
consequence was an increase in distractions during meetings, he says.
"Now we start off meetings with, 'Screens down, Blackberrys off and
cell phones on vibrate,'" Hoffman says.
© 2005 The Deal.com. All rights reserved.
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