" (Papacharissi & Rubin, 2000) Barriers and Issues

The most fundamental concern in the refurbishment building's networking and VoIP proposal is also the industry's most basic barriers to accomplishing the goal of networking success. In other words, instituting a highly efficient network is the easy part for our organization; the barrier is education of the end user. Far too often small business owners, apartment dwellers and coffee shop internet surfers have no problem utilizing a simple PC. The concern comes to light when that VoIP is in the process of making an international call or if the system is dropping communications because video streaming is eating up bandwidth. Incorporating and maintain VoIP is a complicated process.

VoIP is only a general term for the plethora of transmission technologies that deliver voice communication over the internet and through land line-based packet-switched networks. For example, the technology has evolved and off shoots has been developed such as internet telephony can provide services for voice, facsimile, and voice-messaging applications that move over the internet and therefore bypass public switched telephone networks. To reduce barriers and to avoid issues, this new system will need the capabilities to create a call on this end, pass it through the internet by utilizing a conversion process that can switch an analog voice or data signal into a compliant digital format and then reverse the process seamlessly.

This proposal also takes into consideration the barrier associated with the man hours that will be spent training and retraining the end users of the new system. Because of the proposed size and sophistication of this new network, a major part of the proposal is long-term education for the four mandatory employees and the minor staff they may employ to keep the system functioning properly. Education is the one aspect of the proposal that we feel we have the highest and strongest background in because we have a long-term relationship with many local and distance-based learning facilities.

Another barrier to implementing a viable networking business solution will be the intermingling of private and business entities. Small to midsized organizations using LAN-based processes or that make confidential calls or pass private data may not have the understanding that their data could be compromised completely by accident if certain security measures are overlooked. Apartment dwellers will also have to understand that the network and VoIP they are using is or may be providing reduced bandwidth because one or some of the businesses are running end of day, end of month or annual backups or background maintenance. It is crucial to build into the system the capabilities that will not hold back bandwidth for some but flow freely to others. All infrastructure gaps between in-house servers and client/server systems will have to live together in harmony.

Another barrier that may or may not be a concern is the fact that adding to the network after it has been built can at times require external assistance and our firm has the historical background to provide that service. Far too often projects like this refurbishment accept proposals that do not consider or explain what will be required to grow. Businesses may need to be cautious to add or remove servers. That is actually less of a concern. The concern takes place when workstations and network servers are upgraded piecemeal and in turn the entire phone system suffers.

Finally, in regard to barriers, we understand that there is a global economic recession taking its toll on the nation. We will incorporate software that can increase affordability of the process because of the return on investment by using this older but very effective tool. "The fundamental principle of yield management is that different classes of service, be it Internet access or it, are defined and only the high-priority classes are served during peak periods of demand. During low periods of demand, discount classes are intended to attract an increased level of demand. The consequence of such techniques is that the system's capacity is more full on average and revenues are higher." (MacKie-Mason & Waterman, 1998)

Approach

It is time in the proposal to suggest some start up software and hardware that will need to be integrated into the early parts of the building refurbishment project. These items and suggestions need to be done before the building work is started because of the difficulty in implementation after walls are in place. The suggested approach for this project is to acquire Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Lines or ADSL. This reliable type of communication...

"The amount of traffic these people consumed was between 140GB and 600GB per month, which amounted to around 10% of the total traffic due to ADSL users."(ADSL Guide, 2009) This hardware and software combination uses subscriber lines provided by companies such as at&T, Verizon and Lucent. They all convert the basic regular phone line that runs in between a local telephone exchange and the phone company's telephone socket and route data out of slow brass and into high-speed digital lines.
This technology is named 'asymmetric' mainly because of the potential speed that data can be moved from point a to Point B. And back again. However, it is highly cost affective to install the lines for the up to 50 apartments, 30 small retail stores, 2 or more full-service restaurants, a breakfast cafe, and office space together within the bare walls of the building prior to detail building so that a single line can meet the external world as opposed to each store, apartment and outlet needing a line to the external world. Avoiding having to completely rewire the entire building at some later date, it is again, highly recommended that this process be incorporated in to the design phase so as not to be missed.

This technology is very cost effective because the ADSL technology works with regular telephone lines. The base mainframe and Local and Wide Area Networks would not be directly affected, minimal hardware changes are needed other than ADSL signal receiving modems at the ends of the communication spectrum. ADSL modems exploit basic transmission options from copper lines and reenergize them with data transmission rates over 2 Mbps, faster than ISDN.

For the VoIP technology, there are two viable options. The first is to build a custom proprietary system that utilizes technologies such as:

The market leader is Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)

H.323

IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS)

Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP)

The second option would be to not build a proprietary system, but instead utilize an existing system such as the Skype network. The obvious differences of the two options are upfront costs, maintenance costs and overall system security.

Apartment & Business

There are many different approaches to implementing a new network with VoIP. In this case, both apartments and businesses may have integrated or completely isolated needs. As part of the refurbishment, it will have to be distinguished ahead of time if the needs of one sub-group are vitally different from the other groups. Consideration of traffic patterns for network data and VoIP usage will need insights into all forms of traffic, including, but not limited to, internet access (for both business and leisure use); video traffic (IPTV) and building monitoring and security, and of course the day-to-day telephone calls that are needed by both the business and private residents. We intend on installing a wired (Cat 5 Ethernet) facility in the first stage of the development and for a variety of reasons, have now focused in on a wireless (802.11 a/b) connectivity for the remaining areas of the building complex. We will present both options here and the proposal submission will await a response to see which option is chosen.

But another concern of this proposal is telephone hardware. Historically, analog telephone adapters for connecting analog phones to the proposed VoIP may either be tied to the system with an IP network broadband connection or an existing telephone jack. Will both businesses and private users use telephone jacks so that phone hardware is fixed to one location in the same manner as the majority of the businesses will require? There are also newer dedicated VoIP phones that allow VoIP calls without needing a computer. Obviously these types of phones connect directly to the network via a Wi-Fi connection. For example, the NEC N900iL is Wi-Fi enabled and functions with SIP built in.

VoIP solutions that target the business community have also grown into a more integrated communications process that will easily help meet one of the project requirements of combining all communications of phone, fax, voice mail, e-mail, Web conference and other business functions. Today, we will be able to provide units that deliver to any handset or cell phone. But other than these types of design questions, the biggest issue for this project will be related to the proposal's security concerns.

Security

Security is a three headed monster. "Three basic security concepts important…