We are a large dispersed institution of approximately 30,000 employees that is undergoing a review of our orientation process. We are considering giving every employee a PDA. We hope to give our employees ‘just-in-time’ information:
1. items they would want to know e.g. they can indicate what their interests are and get automatic downloads of relevant company events / initiatives
2. items they probably need to knowe.g. parking regulations, benefits information, etc., location maps
3. items they must knowe.g. yearly health and safety reviews
I agree
No opinion
I disagree
Add your comment
There is no real reason to specifically implement those points on a PDA, a desktop PC would do.
A PDA can be an expensive tool, and many employees won't use them effectively.
If they have PCs on the campus network, you'd be better off putting them on mailing lists.
What you need is wireless broadband/ADL, using a wireless mesh box.
Mesh networks A MeshAP can send and receive messages and also functions as a router that can relay messages for its neighbors. Through the relaying process, data will find its way to its destination, passing through intermediate MeshAPs.
Like the Internet and other peer-to-peer router-based networks, a mesh network offers multiple redundant communications paths throughout the network. If one link fails for any reason, the network automatically routes messages through alternate paths.
In a mesh network, you can shorten the distance between nodes, which dramatically increases the link quality. If you reduce the distance by a factor of two, the resulting signal is at least four times more powerful at the receiver.
This makes links more reliable without increasing transmitter power in individual nodes. In a mesh network, you can extend the reach, add redundancy and improve the general reliability of the network simply by adding more MeshAPs.
A Self-Configuring and Self-Healing NetworkA mesh network is self-organising and doesn’t require manual configuration. Because of this, adding new MeshAPs or relocating existing MeshAPs is as simple as plugging it in and turning it on. The network discovers the new node and automatically incorporates it into the existing system.
On the Internet, if one router goes down, messages are sent through an alternate path by other routers. Similarly, if a device or its link in a mesh network fails, messages are sent around it via other devices. Loss of one or more nodes doesn’t necessarily affect the network’s operation. A mesh network is self-healing because human intervention is not necessary for re-routing of messages.
Redundancy and ScalabilityA network can be deliberately over-designed for reliability simply by adding extra nodes, so each device has two or more paths for sending data. This is a simpler way of obtaining redundancy than is possible in most other types of systems.A mesh network is also scalable and can handle hundreds or thousands of nodes. Because the network’s operation doesn’t depend on a central control point, adding multiple data collection points or gateways is convenient.
Point-to-point networks can provide reliability, but they don’t scale to handle more than one pair of end points. Point-to-multipoint networks can handle more end points, but their reliability is determined by the placement of the access point and end points.
If environmental conditions result in poor reliability, it’s difficult or impossible to adapt a point-to-multipoint network to increase reliability. By contrast, mesh networks are inherently reliable, adapt easily to environmental or architectural constraints, and can scale to handle thousands of end points.