Use Of The Nec System example essay topic

ACME Electronics is a medium size business specializing in Lighting controls and systems. Acme's main clients are consumers of Home Improvement outlets and Installing Electrical Contractors. This company has recently decided to upgrade the intercommunications network. This memo will highlight the advantages as well as disadvantages of the system chosen to be installed. The system chosen to replace the legacy PBX switching system will be the NEC's NEAX 2000 IPS. The headquarters of ACME Electronics is spread between four buildings.

The NEC NEAX 2000 IPS supports distributed processor architecture. This means that the processing requirements of the system are shared between more than processor. This allows for faster response times and redundant operation. If one processor fails, the other can take over. Two of the four buildings are equipped with 1 Pentium 200 MHz Processor dedicated to the inter-communications system. The main advantage of using this system is that is supports voice over IP (VoIP) services such as IP-Centrex.

IP Centrex is a service that provides a single broadband access point to a company. The company can use this access point to broadcast packets of voice data. When no voice data is present, more bandwidth is available to other uses of the company. This results in saved money to the company because dedicated phone lines are not needed. The new communications system will be installed using the existing cabling. The connection that will be used to tie the buildings together will use fiber as a transmission medium.

Each of the four buildings is tied together using previously installed multi-mode fiber optic cable. Prior to the installation of this system, this fiber was referred to as "Dark Fiber", meaning it was not used and therefore no light was being transmitted through it. During the construction of 2 of the 4 building, Structured Cabling was installed to facilitate future communication and data requirements. The communications protocol that will be used for voice communications is Asynchronous Transmissions Mode, ATM.

ATM is a dedicated switching method that assembles 53 byte cell frames and sends them over a physical medium using digital signal technology. ATM is Asynchronous because the cell frames are not transmitted in any sort of predetermined order. The reason ATM is so fast is primarily due to hardware such as fiber. The speed of ATM is 155.5 Mbps.

Acme Electronics is separated into many different departments. Depending on the department an employee is assigned to, the need for communications can vary. Take for example, the customer support hotline personnel. These personnel rely on a dependable phone system to route calls, manage call queues and provide reporting capabilities to management to determine the performance of the personnel. Acme Electronics has a need for approximately 4000 communication points. The use of the NEC system allows for IP Data terminal phone sets.

This means that each phone is assigned a unique IP address. If an employee is moved to another part of the company, no complicated reprogramming of the phone is required. The phones are a plug and play type of device. Simply plug the phone into the appropriate jack and the phone can "self-configure". The NEAX 2000 supports conventional DTMF frequency tones. The purpose of DTMF tones is to give the caller the ability to select for a specific menu or dial an extension.

The DTMF method uses 7 different frequencies to identify all numbers and symbols on a typical telephone keypad, for example if the number one is pressed on the keypad the phone system will modulate 1209 Hz with 697 Hz to produce a distinct audible tone that can be demodulated by the phone system. This is also known as analog transmission. The difference between an analog signal and a digital signal is that digital is represented by a 1 or 0 or an On and OFF, the analog signal can be represented in many different ways. The NEAX 2000 also supports legacy TDM technology. The reason for this need is that many of the older phones located in the original building are based on TDM technology.

TDM is a method of modulating voice or data and splitting up the data into many smaller chunks or frames of data. This data is then sent down a common path. The main advantage of VoIP over TDM is that VoIP packets can be sent in multiple paths, depending on the most convenient path available and VoIP doesn't send blank data, in other words if a person is not speaking then no data is sent, but in TDM transmissions this empty space is treated the same as if a user was speaking into the phone system. The installation of the system was completed approximately six months ago and has worked extremely well. The system has required multiple software upgrades and minimal downtime was caused by software uploads. This system was also installed with the ability of battery back up power.

The backup power allows for the system to function (in a scaled down state) for approximately 2 hours from time of loss of power. This time could be more or less depending on the use of the system during equipment outages. In conclusion, the system installed meets the needs of the company. The VoIP will save money because voice communications can share a common broadband access point.

The ability for an employee to quickly move and setup the phone system makes the employee more productive. The battery backup helps the company stay in touch with the customer during power outages. This system is sure to grow with ACME and meet it's needs well into the future.