Future workplaces will be 'smart buildings'

Businesses have been urged to prepare their networks to accommodate the next step in converged systems, which could potentially save them thousands of pounds.

While IP telephony and data services are already being shared by many firms across their offices, network supplier Panduit suggested that climate control and security systems could be next.

This could see actions such as air-conditioning and lights turning on automatically to prepare a room for a meeting, which when applied company-wide was predicted by Panduit to potentially save a business 60 per cent on their energy and maintenance costs.

But Brett Swett, Panduit's business development manager told TechNewsWorld warned that businesses were not ready for these IP services.

He advised that companies should group office systems into zones to make the future switch to including these services a smoother one, since this would mean less rewiring of the office would be necessary during the installation.