Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

How can we move to network-based communication?

  • By Jaime Mendez
  • 04/01/18

Many schools rightly see network-based distributed communication—moving paging, intercom, and bells to the LAN away from separate hard-wired analog systems—as a way to increase efficiency, flexibility, safety, and even space. Replacing huge paging amps, redundant wiring, and 70-volt speakers with a server, a software interface, and a variety of flexible IP-addressable endpoints has numerous advantages. The most basic include giving office staff the power to set up different bell schedules for different zones, turn them off on the weekend, and make changes anytime with a few clicks.

Schools can also gain safety functionality they never had before: panic buttons in classrooms, silent alerts, and instant triggering of lockdowns and all-clears from the office or even a mobile device. Integrating all these methods of communication under a single platform is a big plus.

But it’s not an impulse buy. The time to move to a modern school communication platform isn’t when your current analog amp goes down. This takes planning—and not just at the individual school level.

Most districts want standardization throughout their schools. Clearly, continuing to standardize on 1960s technology is not acceptable, but making a sweeping district-wide upgrade to IP-based systems is daunting. A more realistic approach is to build the new digital standard into new construction projects, then bring older schools up to that IP-based standard over time. This ensures you’re designing for the future rather than digitizing old habits and forces a district-wide approach to daily communications and safety protocols you can implement methodically over a number of years.

It’s a big task, but very worthwhile, and fortunately there are experienced professionals to help you execute a successful plan.

This article originally appeared in the School Planning & Management April 2018 issue of Spaces4Learning.

About the Author

Jaime Mendez serves as architectural consultant at FrontRow. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • FGCU Breaks Ground on New Health Sciences Building

    Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) has launched construction on a major new academic facility that leaders say will reshape healthcare education in Southwest Florida for decades to come, according to university news.

  • Planning with Clarity: Using AI to Make Better Campus Decisions, Not Just Better Designs

    Higher education leaders are being asked to make increasingly high-stakes decisions about campus facilities amid greater uncertainty than ever before. Social and economic pressures, shifting enrollment, and evolving learning models compete with growing deferred maintenance needs to strain even the most robust infrastructure budgets.

  • University of Kansas Breaks Ground on Entrepreneurship Hub

    The University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kan., recently held a groundbreaking ceremony for the new KU Entrepreneurship Hub, according to university news. The Hub is part of the university’s School of Business and will include spaces for experiential learning and programming.

  • Universities Continue to Launch Multimillion-Dollar Campus Transformations

    What makes the current wave of campus development especially noteworthy is its emphasis on multi-use functionality and community integration. Institutions are no longer investing solely in academic or athletic facilities in isolation. Instead, they are creating destinations that blend recreation, health, housing, and event-driven economic activity.