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		Revised: 1 April 2004

		Critical to the success of the Telecommunications Infrastructure Initiative is the construction of telecommunications rooms in each served building. Modern telecommunications equipment contains "active" components (i.e., computers) that must be protected from electromagnetic interference (typical of campus mechanical rooms), moisture (typical of custodial spaces and mechanical rooms), and heat (typical of open spaces without controlled ventilation). These rooms must be secured in order to minimize the opportunity for loss of services due to mistake, accident, or sabotage. They also must be restricted - the space may not be shared with other uses, thus limiting the personnel permitted access. Further, they must be large enough to allow the support technicians to troubleshoot the equipment and connect and disconnect circuits. The design specifications are defined in the Telecommunications Infrastructure Planning (TIP) Guidelines.

		The university has completed the painful process of selecting space for telecommunications rooms in adherence to the TIP guidelines. Wherever possible, space was acquired from lobby and other open space areas, storage areas and custodial room, all of which will require expensive remodeling in order to be used as telecommunications spaces. Unfortunately, the project required the acquisition of some offices for these telecommunications rooms. A list of space to be converted to telecommunications rooms is available at: http://www.humboldt.edu/~tii/telcomrooms.htm.



	Fall 2001

	Dear Colleagues:

	Probably the one thing in shortest supply on the Humboldt campus is space. Although we have tried our best to minimize the number of offices that must be converted to telecommunications equipment rooms as part of the Telecommunications Infrastructure Initiative, some offices will have to be converted.

	I recognize and appreciate how traumatic it can be to lose an office space, particularly one that you may have occupied for an extended period of time. It becomes "personal" space after a while and becomes part of what you call "home." I assure you that we did everything possible, within the limits of responsible management of the project, to find alternatives to taking offices. My purpose here is to explain the limitations under which the network design had to occur.

	The rooms will be holding active electronics. Therefore, they cannot share space with any potential source of interference such as is generated in mechanical rooms. Also, they are required to be secured spaces, so they cannot share space with storage that is accessed by other than the telecom support personnel.

	Under current network design requirements, all telecommunications jacks are wired directly back to an "intermediate distribution frame" (IDF), which holds the rack-mounted switches, hubs, power supplies, etc., that provide the network both distribution and intelligence. This means all the wiring for a floor goes back to a special room reserved just for housing the IDF. The support personnel need at least three feet of clearance behind the rack in the IDF room to work on the wiring. They also need three feet of space in the front of the rack to get to the controls and operate diagnostic equipment. Likewise, they need three feet on each side for passage. Given that a rack is about 2-1/2 feet by 2 feet, minimum space for a one-rack room is about 8-1/2 feet by 8 feet. We clearly have cheated some by going with a few not-too-much-smaller spaces in some cases where we do not foresee ever having to expand the amount of equipment in the room. Typically, the variation in the size of the rooms that were chosen is due to what the room size originally was, how much area (i.e., how many connections) it must service, and what can be done with it architecturally.

	The length of a wire run from a data device (micro, printer, server, etc.) back to the IDF is restricted to 100 meters. For design purposes, architects start with an assumption that the limit really is 220 feet. This allows contractors to correct for distances when they have to route around previously undiscovered obstacles in the building, such as pipes and electrical circuits. In a long building, such as Science A, we tried to centralize the room so we could serve an entire floor from one room. Moving away from the center in these buildings would require that we take two rooms on each floor, one at each end of the building. As a result, some of our planned runs are as long as 265 feet, really pushing the limit, in order to minimize the number of rooms we need to take.

	There are two additional technical constraints. First, the cabling must enter the building. The cable is brought in from the nearest manhole to an appropriate entry way into the building (typically we have to cut through the foundation), connected to a "building distribution frame" (BDF), and redistributed from the BDF to all of the building's IDFs. Based on the location of the manhole and the way the building was built, we do not have a lot choice on some of the buildings on where we enter. Second, fiber is limited in its ability to bend. If there is not sufficient space between the ceiling of one floor and the floor of the floor above it, the IDFs have to be lined up one above the other.

	The final constraint, after meeting all the technical requirements above, is that, where there is a choice, we are to take storage space first (so we are remodeling some storage spaces, taking lounge space in restrooms, and ripping out custodial closets), office space second, and instructional space third. This is a constraint placed on us by the Chancellor's Office. Where possible, we will build new rooms to be the telecommunications rooms or to replace office space lost to be project.

	Given all of the above, GLUMAC, the consulting firm developing the working drawings, has been very creative in reducing the number of office spaces originally identified as being required during the early planning stages for the project. Wherever we do not need to install active electronics, the consultants have designed distribution using wall mount distribution panels in place of IDFs. They also have stretched some of the cable runs to the point that there will be little or no margin for error in the installation.

	Caveat: The room grid showing the spaces that will be taken as telecommunications equipment rooms shows the planned construction of some replacement offices where there was sufficient space to build them. The construction of these new rooms will need to be "deductive alternatives" in the bid documents, which means that the new rooms will not be built if there are not sufficient project funds available to pay for their construction. However, there will be a relocation plan in place before construction starts.

	We will begin displacing people from the selected offices with the beginning of construction during Summer 2002. In the meantime, any suggestions from anyone on how we might mitigate the loss of office spaces for those being displaced will be most welcome. Please send me your suggestions and comments to: cannon@humboldt.edu.

	Sincerely,
	*Bill Cannon*
	Director of Information Technology Services Humboldt State University