Trendsetting Programs

Enterprising work-at-home programs throughout the Northeast are proving the value of telecommuting to both employers and workers:

After an exhaustive study and several successful tests, a leading New York City investment banking firm is in the process of installing more than 600 ISDN lines for high-speed, work-at-home connections to the company's central backbone network.

The program enables most of the firm's key traders and analysts to telecommute one or more days a week, and also represents a major strategy to deal with snowstorms, transportation strikes, bridge closures and other natural and manmade barriers that can make it impossible for employees to reach their offices in lower Manhattan.

Similar programs are now being implemented at several other investment and financial firms in both New York and Boston.

Bausch & Lomb's Polymer Technologies Corporation is the world's leader in the design, manufacture and sale of rigid gas-permeable contact lenses. It is also a company with a major commitment to ISDN.

"ISDN makes possible the concept of a virtual company," says Dr. Daniel Gingras, director of the corporation, "because it transports both the expertise of our people and the power of our systems wherever and whenever we need them." Virtually anyone in the corporation, for example, can access almost any LAN, WAN or mainframe system from their office, from another office or from their home through dialed ISDN connections.

"Home becomes an integral part of the office," said Dr. Gingras, "which means that we can truly start balancing the needs of our jobs and families. Any member of our staff can complete much of a project at home. Our jobs deal basically with information, and information can be delivered where we need it." Polymer Technologies uses a range of AccessWorks equipment to link its central systems, offices and homes.

The company has also committed to a range of video conferencing applications, with high-speed T1 links between its major sites. It is also extending this backbone video network with dialed ISDN connections to offices in Hong Kong, London, Rochester and San Antonio, as well as to desktop video connections in key executive's homes.

Lotus Development Corporation in Cambridge is testing an ambitious work-at-home program, says Jerry Audet, the firm's telecommunications analyst. "We have about 30 people now," he says, "and expect to be ramping up to about 100 in the near future." Telecommuters include consultants, sales people, and a range of others.

"They all need high-speed access to their office LANs and servers," he notes, "and ISDN gives them that." Lotus uses Gandalf equipment capable of compressed transmission speeds up to a megabit a second.

McDonald's Corporation, the fast-food restaurant chain based in Oak Brook, IL, sees telecommuting as an effective response to the Clean Air Act and other legislation. According to Patrick Krause, director of network systems, they also saw the potential to increase employee productivity, improve morale with more flexible working arrangements, and defuse what had become a chronic need for space.

Today, some 250 employees work at home, linked through ISDN to the company's various information systems. Many also have desktop video conferencing capabilities, and some even conduct meetings from their homes with key suppliers. In addition, a growing number of field representatives, who travel to restaurants around the nation, often dial into company databases through ISDN connections.

At the regional headquarters of Silicon Graphics Incorporated in Hudson, MA, a significant portion of its software and systems engineers currently work at home through ISDN connections. Using Motorola and Northern Telecom equipment for their home-based SGI Unix workstations, the engineers dial into the company's PRI hub to work on a range of computer and applications software. Through their video-equipped systems, they can also do person-to-person video conferencing to share and exchange ideas with their peers.

A number of the company's sales representatives also use SGI workstations and ISDN to tap into their headquarters' LAN for e-mail and bulletins, and to access a range of sales and marketing databases. Some of the sales reps can also use their systems for brief video meetings with co-workers at headquarters and at home.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in Livermore, CA, has more than 200 employees currently telecommuting. Virtually all need extended high-speed access to the company's scientific, engineering or administrative LANs according to Natalie Clinton, operations manager of the LLNL telecommunications systems department

Clinton, who heads this growing program, notes that work-at-home scientists use the ISDN facilities for everything from community service to moon watching via satellite image transmissions (see above). She herself telecommutes one day a week, accessing a range of LANs on the sprawling campus.

"Modems were useful for text-based e-mail," she said, "but for real telecommuting people need to have high-speed Ethernet access at home. Today, ISDN gives them this kind of performance, and equipment prices keep getting better all the time."

More than 160 executives of Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, WA - including its chairman Bill Gates - have been telecommuting through ISDN since October 1993. In addition, some 500 vendors and suppliers have BRI connections to access the company's systems for product testing, uploading and downloading of software, and a host of administrative and scheduling data.

Microsoft's program is also a testbed for the company's growing commitment to ISDN products and software - for group collaborations, video conferencing, ISDN extensions of its Windows technology, and PC-based control of ISDN voice and data telephone installations.

Other Sections Of This Chapter:

Beginning Of Chapter 3
The Answer: ISDN
Equipment Needs For The Central Location
Trendsetting Programs
Wave Of The Future