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To access the contents, click the chapter and section titles.
Wireless Networking Handbook
UtilitiesUtility companies operate and maintain a highly distributed system that delivers power and natural gas to industries and residences. Utility companies must continually monitor the operation of the electrical distribution system and gas lines, and must check usage meters at least monthly to calculate bills. Traditionally, this means a person must travel from location to location, record information, and then enter the data at a service or computing center. Several utility companies are employing wireless networks to support the automation of meter reading and system monitoring, saving time and reducing overhead costs. Kansas City Power & Light, for example, operates one of the largest wireless metering systems, serving more than 150,000 customers in eastern Kansas and western Missouri. This system employs a monitoring device at each customer site that takes periodic meter readings and sends the information back to a database that tracks usage levels and calculates bills, avoiding the need for a staff of meter readers. In addition, the Jacksonville Electric Authority (JEA) in Jacksonville, Florida, uses a RAM Mobile Data wireless WAN service to save time and reduce paperwork. This system eliminates radio conversations and paperwork between central-site dispatchers and maintenance people, speeding up the service to customers. Field ServiceField service personnel spend most of their time on the road installing and maintaining systems or inspecting facilities under construction. In order to complete their jobs, these individuals need access to product documentation and procedures. Traditionally, field service employees have had to carry several binders of documentation with them to sites that often lack a phone and even electricity. In some cases, the field person might not be able to take all the documents with him to a job site, causing him to delay the work while obtaining the proper information. On long trips this information may also become outdated. Updates require delivery that may take days to reach the person in the field. Wireless access to documentation can definitely enhance field service. A field service employee, for example, can carry a portable computer connected via a wireless network to the office LAN containing accurate documentation of all applicable information. Field SalesSales professionals are always on the move meeting with customers. While on site with a customer, a salesperson needs access to vast information that describes products and services. Salespeople must also place orders, provide status, such as meeting schedules, to the home office, and maintain inventories. With wireless access to the home office network, a salesperson can view centralized contact information, retrieve product information, produce proposals, create contracts, and stay in touch with home office staff and other salespeople. This contact permits salespeople to complete the entire sale directly from the customer site, which increases the potential for a successful sale and shortens the sales cycle. VendingBeverage and snack companies place vending machines in hotels, airports, and office buildings to enhance the sales of their products. Vending machines eliminate the need for a human salesclerk. These companies, however, must send employees around to stock the machines periodically. In some cases, machines might become empty before the restocking occurs because the company has no way of knowing if the machine runs out of a particular product. An empty machine does not generate revenue and is therefore of no value to the company. A wireless network, though, can support the monitoring of stock levels by transporting applicable data from each of the vending machines to a central database that can be easily viewed by company personnel from a single location. Such monitoring allows companies to be proactive in stocking their machines because they will always know the stock levels at each machine. Comverse Technologys DGM&S subsidiary licensed software to BellSouth to support a vending machine monitoring service called Cellemetry, which uses the data channels of existing cellular networks. The Future of Wireless NetworksWhere is wireless networking going? What will the future bring? Predicting what the state of this technology and its products will be five years from now, or even a year from now, is impossible. The outlook for wireless networks, however, is very good. As figure 1.14 illustrates, the maturation of standards should motivate vendors to produce new wireless products and drive the prices down to levels that are much easier to justify. The presence of standards will motivate smaller companies to manufacture wireless components because they will not need to invest large sums of money in the research and development phases of the product. These investments will have already been made and embodied within the standards, which will be available to anyone interested in building wireless network components.
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