Cutting the ties that bind office workers

Both are necessities, because some tenants in office buildings require high-speed landline access while others require wireless access, said Kevin Bennett, vice president of infrastructure at Infomart.

The Infomart, in Dallas, leases space to technology companies supporting virtually every aspect of the Internet from major telco providers to content providers, network operations centers and consulting companies.

Some parts of commercial buildings should be designated as points of presence -- the central points for Internet traffic exchange and routing, Bennet said.

The buildings also must be equipped to handle wireless traffic, using point-to-point and point-to-multipoint signaling, usually via satellite dishes on rooftops.

"It seems like most of the high-speed access is still on wireline access, at least from where I sit," he said.

Bennett said wireless technology is not having a great impact on the commercial real estate market at this time.

As tenants continue to demand more bandwidth, the latest wired technologies will continue to supply bandwidth via fiber-optic backbones.

The Infomart building is equipped to support one of the latest fiber-optic technologies, dense wavelength division multiplexing.

DWDM combines data from different sources on an optical fiber, with each signal carried on its own separate light wavelength. Bennett said numerous carriers at the Infomart have equipped themselves to deploy this architecture through their local loops.

Phil Baker, president of Baker Commercial Realty, agrees that the market trend in the Metroplex is toward high-speed landlines, simply because wireless technology is not yet secure or reliable enough.

"Technology must be reliable," Baker said. However, he added, "Some companies could use wireless as redundant telecommunications."

Consistent uptime is critical to the success of companies that rely heavily on telecommunications to conduct business, and wireless provides a back-up in the event landline communications fail.

Baker said the future of commercial real estate communications lies in wireless technology. "Already, we have laptops wirelessly connected to servers," he said.

Five years from now, the entire switchboard system could be wireless, Baker predicts, but for this to happen radio frequency engineering must improve.

When wireless technology becomes more reliable and secure, Baker said, wireless will change the way people use space.

The virtual office could become reality, and firms could be more economical with office space. Cellular telephones could become office phones, eliminating the need for employees to be physically present in offices.

As a commercial real estate broker, Baker said he had not yet seen the virtual-office approach in the Metroplex but, he said, "It's inevitable."

Expert opinions vary regarding when, or if, wireless technologies will completely or partially replace landline communications, or whether landline technologies will remain the dominant means of communications.

In the meantime, while companies await the future impact of wireless technologies on the commercial real estate market, they are taking full advantage of fiber optics and high-speed connections offered by wired communications.

Jones is a free-lance writer in Dallas.

Copyright 2001 American City Business Journals Inc. Click for permission to reprint (PRC# 1.1647.427430)

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