![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
To access the contents, click the chapter and section titles.
Wireless Networking Handbook
Wireless Branch Banking Network2
Franklin National Bank is located in rural northeast Texas. The bank implemented wireless technology to provide a high-performance data transmission facility for teller terminals between the host data center at the main office in Mt. Vernon and new remote branches established in outlying population centers. The branches are 20 to 30 miles from Mt. Vernon. The system initially connected four remote branches. The bank is planning additional branches for the future. Through the use of Multipoint Networks wireless MAN products, Franklin National Bank connected the new additional branches in a cost-effective manner and provided them with the same efficient service as at the main bank in Mt. Vernon. Leased line costs would have been prohibitive in this same application. The resulting teller system, illustrated in Figure 3.6, services multiple asynchronous teller terminals at each location. An X.25 PAD (packet assembler/disassembler) at each location converts the asynchronous bit stream (individual characters) from the multiple terminals into synchronous data for transmission over the wireless modem link. At each remote branch, the PADs redistribute the individual channels to their specific teller terminals. Justice on Wheels3
A pioneering application, which involves a pair of Cylinks AirLink 128 modems with a video monitor at one site (a court house) and a roll-around mobile unit at a remote site (a jail), is making life easier and saving money for the Vermilion Parish Sheriffs office in Abbeville, Louisiana. The system configuration is shown in figure 3.7. The system was installed to avoid transporting prisoners to the Court House for hearings and arraignments. There are many benefits of being able to communicate with the prisoners face to face, but considerable pressure exists to make a single visit suffice because someone must escort the prisoner nine miles from the jail to the Court House, hampering the security of the public and the prisoner. Also, scheduling conflicts often arise, forcing the escort to take the prisoner back to the jail to wait for the rescheduled appointment.
Installation of the system only took one day by placing an AirLink 128 in both the Vermilion Parish Court House and the jail and then installing directional antennas on the roofs of both buildings. When people in the courthouse want to interview a particular inmate, jail personnel wheel a video conferencing cartequipped with a camera, TV microphone/video codec, and AirLink 128to the prisoner. This saves the Parish court system a great deal of time and money.
AgPro Grain and RANGELINK4
AgPro Grain, Inc., a grain handling firm based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, trimmed overhead and boosted customer service levels by replacing its slow and expensive modem-based dial-up links to a nearby satellite facility with a low-cost wireless network. This enables remote workstations to swiftly and seamlessly access the companys LAN. The result: communications costs have dropped dramatically and customer transactions at a remote facility are completed much more quickly. AgPro Grain, with offices in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and British Columbia, buys wheat, barley, flax, and canola from farmers in these provinces and ships the grains to export markets. The company accepts delivery of the grain from farmers at grain elevators and then, based on the type of grain and its grade, pays for the delivery and logs the transaction into a settlement system. In Saskatoon, farmers deliver large quantities of grain to an inland terminal that also houses business offices; smaller deliveries are made to a smaller grain elevator, called Saskatoon A, 700 feet away. With 12 staff members at the main business office, and only two at Saskatoon A, implementing separate networks at each site to support the settlement system was not cost-effective. Faced with the problems of optimizing transaction speed for farmers at Saskatoon A, enhancing overall network operation control, minimizing capital expenditures, and controlling ongoing communication costs, AgPro Grain looked for a way to integrate workers at this remote facility with a new LAN implemented at the main business office. The most obvious solution was a leased telephone line. Because traffic is so light between the two sites, however, it could not be cost-justified. Similarly, linking the sites with fiber optic or coaxial cable was also too expensive, due in part to the costs of obtaining permits to lay cable under the railroad lines that separate the facilities. The company then considered utilizing the same frame relay network used to link offices and elevators at its Manitoba facilities, but the costs of this option would have been $600 per month and low data speeds. With no conventional communications alternatives meeting its needs, AgPro Grain began a market search for a low-cost, easy-to-install wireless link between the two sites that would not be affected by extreme climatic conditionsincluding temperatures that vary from 40 degrees Celsius in the summer to minus 40 in the winter. AgPro decided to use Proxims RangeLINK product. RangeLINK has been operating flawlessly throughout Saskatoons harsh winter climate at speeds that enable transactions at Saskatoon A to be completed four times faster than with the modem-based dial-up system that AgPro Grain previously used.
|
![]() |
Products | Contact Us | About Us | Privacy | Ad Info | Home
Use of this site is subject to certain Terms & Conditions, Copyright © 1996-2000 EarthWeb Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of EarthWeb is prohibited. Read EarthWeb's privacy statement. |