Broadband Communities

OCT 2012

BROADBAND COMMUNITIES is the leading source of information on digital and broadband technologies for buildings and communities. Our editorial aims to accelerate the deployment of Fiber-To-The-Home and Fiber-To-The-Premises.

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• Ensure their on-property Internet infrastructure is in their control and not in that of a third party • Understand the effect of Internet provisioning on their pro formas • Manage the risk of copyright viola- tion complaints • Conduct marketing to maximize the value of best-in-class Internet provi- sioning during the leasing cycle. If the growth of bandwidth per user will soon exceed the capacity of today's student housing networks, property owners and managers and their network designers and planners need to take into account the demands on and the poten- tial lifespan of the various components of their property networks. Tey also must be aware of the changes that are likely to be required. PHYSICAL WIRING INFRASTRUCTURE Almost all personal computers sold today contain gigabit-capable network interface cards that can also operate at 100 Mbps by autosensing the capabilities of their connections. Given the usual two- to four-year lifetime of a computer and the fact that most devices can easily be up- graded to Gigabit Ethernet, the majority of network-connected devices will likely be gigabit-capable within two years. However, the physical wiring in many student housing communities may not support gigabit speeds. With per‐user speeds expected to exceed 100 Mbps in 2014–15, Cat 5 will become obsolete, and Cat 5e installations will have to be surveyed to determine their suitability for carrying payloads in excess of 100 Mbps. New networks built today should use gigabit-capable structured wiring to avoid wiring upgrades in the short term. Operators and owners of existing net- works should begin to determine when they will need to upgrade their physical infrastructure and plan accordingly. WIRELESS ACCESS Most local area wireless access technolo- gies rely on access points that need the same wired infrastructure and access or distribution layer capability as wired connections, and similar challenges ap- ply. Wireless connections continue to provide slower connection capabilities Restricting the number of devices a resident may use and requiring residents to register their devices is unnecessary and counterproductive. than wired connections, although the gap is narrowing quickly. Wireless ac- cess points deployed today will almost certainly support the 802.11n standard, and emerging standards for gigabit Wi- Fi will almost certainly be in general use shortly. Coverage of a whole property (residential and common areas) with reliable Wi-Fi is considered an essential amenity and an integral part of any stu- dent housing deployment. Carrier wireless (3G or 4G) is unlikely to have a significant impact on band- width requirements at student housing properties until two conditions are met: first, that 4G or better performance is available to the areas in which communi- ties are located and second, and perhaps more important, that carriers alter their monthly plans to include unlimited data. In the short term, although slow progress is being made toward geographic cover- age improvement, most student residents will always use Wi-Fi where it is available to conserve their phone plans and im- prove download speeds. SWITCHES In the Cisco three-layer switching model, the access layer connects users to the delivery network. Currently, many subscriber- and visitor-based networks use Ethernet switches in the access layer with a maximum capability of 100 Mbps per port. In the United States, for the time being, this remains a viable op- tion for switches currently in service, as access-layer electronics usually have a shorter lifespan than the wiring infra- structure and will be adequate for the next two years (at least for a network that serves average users). Te connec- tion between an access-layer switch and the distribution or core layers should be at least at gigabit speed. All new access 1 Gbps access layer ports to connect to individual users and should provide ei- ther a 10 Gbps uplink or the ability to field upgrade to a 10 Gbps uplink. Te distribution and core layers may be separate or combined, depend- ing on the network design. Any port in the distribution/core layer that con- nects an access-layer switch or switches must be able to handle the traffic passed to and from those switches. Generally, networks designed and deployed today should use gigabit ports at a minimum and should have an adequate aggregate throughput capability and the ability to field upgrade to 10 Gbps in the lifespan of the equipment. GATEWAY DEVICES In a student housing network, access is usually managed by a gateway device that provides bandwidth shaping, ac- cess control, proxy, firewall and DHCP/ NAT functionality. Some student hous- ing networks physically or contractually restrict the number of devices a resident may use to two or three and require that those devices be preregistered. Campus Technologies strongly believes these practices are unnecessary and coun- terproductive. A gateway device should have sufficient resources to provide IP addresses and support MAC addresses at a rate of 10 per resident and should not require device registration. Te days of requiring resident registration or log- on are behind us. Residents see these practices as restrictive and intrusive, so they should be avoided. As shown in Table 3, networks of layer switches de- ployed today, whether as upgrades or for new construction, should provide 500 or more users that deploy no more than 100 Mbps Ethernet technology at the gateway and the core will have to reduce service levels by restricting band- width, by allowing contention and thus increasing latency or by increasing con- centration levels; another option is to segment the network to a more granu- OCTOBER 2012 | www.broadbandcommunities.com | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | 37

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