Winston-Salem Business Magazine - October 2007 - (Page 9) BUSINESS Front 60 SECOND BUSINESS STRATEGY Connecting the Small Office How to minimize the cost of your new offices Network Connectivity OPENING AN OFFICE often involves some logistical planning that can soon rack up the budget. When it comes to ensuring that your office is connected to the outside world, like internet connection is this extremely cost effective but Clearwire can also provide phone service that runs off the same modem. Plug a wireless router into the Clearwire modem and you have a to share files and even printers attached to each workstation. One of the most important aspects of being connected to the internet for a business is the ability to send and receive e-mail via the mail server at your website hosting company. If you have a hosted website then you normally have access to their mail server and can setup Microsoft Outlook in your office to send and receive e-mail via their server. Each of your personnel will be able to access their e-mail via the wireless connection. A key point to take into consideration with a wireless office is that it enables employees to stay mobile. Instead of having desktop machines that have a fixed location in the office, employees can use laptops that can be used for travel, business presentations and service calls. This is especially important for sales personnel. When on the road it’s as easy as stopping into a venue that has Wireless Internet Access to check and send email. Many cellular companies now offer a wireless card that allows a laptop to connect to the internet anywhere, anytime. There does not need to be a Wireless Access Point available as the card provides the connectivity via the cellular providers network, at the same speeds as broadband. WINSTON-SALEM BUSINESS | and phone connection, one soon finds out that business pricing for connectivity is much more expensive than residential and that contracts can become a source of concern. With the leaps and bounds that have been made in wireless technology, there are new options for business owners that can result in lower monthly expenditures. Clearwire, for instance, offers a new wireless technology that does not require any internet cabling to be present in a building that needs internet access. Clearwire offers a modem that simply plugs into a power outlet and internet connectivity is made wirelessly. Not only Wireless Access Point whereby you can provide an internet connection for the computers in your office without having to run expensive interior wall cabling. Plug in a Wireless Print Server and you can share your printer(s) wirelessly as well. This provides the option to have one large, high performance printer and let the client machines print to this printer via a wireless connection. Once you have wireless installed in your new office you can share workstations just as you would with a physical network. This enables users 9
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