Telephony at Huffman Trucking

Telephony at Huffman Trucking

Introduction

Huffman trucking is a national transportation company with 1,400 employees in its logistical hubs located in Los Angeles, California, St. Louis, Missouri, and Bayonne, New Jersey. One of their goal is to be industry leader in leveraging technology to the maximum to provide customer service and business efficiencies. It is critical for Huffman to review the existing telephony networks. This paper describes the current telephony networks.

Types of Systems

Various types of systems and networks are used at various locations in Huffman Trucking. Network types are peer-to-peer and server-based networks. Huffman is using server-based and hybrid networks at all offices which is easy to control and administer. "Network topology is the study of the arrangement or mapping of the elements (links, nodes, etc.) of a network, especially the physical (real) and logical (virtual) interconnections between nodes" (Wikipedia.com, 2007). The network is designed using different physical topologies. The common topologies are Bus, Star, Ring, Mesh, Star Ring and Star Bus. Each of the topology diagrams are look like the name suggests. California office is using bus topology with standard PBX system connected to various telephones. The IIS Web server is also connected to different computers, printers and fax systems. Ohio office, Missouri plant and other offices networks are designed with Token Ring topology where as Ethernet network is installed at California office using star topology. New Jersey plant is using even ISDN connection and dumb terminals. The mix of various topologies used at Huffman has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Physical Extents of the Systems

A media is the heart of communication system which carries the actual data from point A to point B reliability. The type of media used for the communication dictates the bandwidth, segment length, maximum segments allowed, devices required per segment, resistance to other interfering signals, required hardware, cost of material and installations, and many other characteristics. A media could be wired or wireless. In general, coaxial cable, twisted-pair cable, and fiber-optic cable are used for wired communication. Coaxial cable allows slower transmission than twisted-pair cable and fiber-optic cable is the fastest transmission cable available today which can