White Paper

Many organizations are considering a comprehensive intelligent or "smart" building infrastructure. Yet this undertaking can bring challenges and complex choices that aren't always apparent at the outset. To get the best return on investment, smart buildings require even smarter upfront planning.

This white paper provides a helpful overview of smart building technology and the trends driving its growth. We will also cover best practices for smart building design.

• Digital building definitions and trends
• Advantages and challenges to digital building investment
• Factoring in Power over Ethernet
• Best practices for digital building design

EXCERPT:

Smart Building Definition and Trends
For decades, conversations about network “convergence” mainly involved the combination of voice and data work area applications onto one network. But in recent years, additional systems and devices found throughout a building have joined the enterprise network, many of which have very different data and power requirements.

As a result of this expansion, the network has become as equally critical as electricity, water and gas to the successful operation of a business and the well-being of building occupants. In fact, 72% of leasing decision makers feel it is extremely critical to have a reliable internet connection in their office space to conduct company business, according to research by the building certification firm WiredScore.

Historically, the local area network (LAN) consisted of work area cabling to support PCs on the desk. Some years later, IP phones were added and more recently wireless access points (WAPs) to support mobile devices like laptops, cell phones, and tablets