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Density issues in the modern workplace

Is it crowded in your office?  Maybe not: you have a nice roomy cubicle, as do your fellow coworkers.  You’ve tacked up some family photos and put a little potted plant off to the side so you can commune with nature in your home-away-from-home.  But how many of those cubes are on that floor?  Or in the building for that matter?

See, you and technology might not agree on what “crowded” means. If you like your wireless gadgets, and goodness knows I like mine, you’re talking on a headset that lets you wander the room, or even the building.  You can get a cup of coffee, stretch your legs, or walk to the window to look outside, all while seamlessly continuing your phone call.  This brings us back, however, to all those other cubes and their residents – Bluetooth frequency can only support so many calls at once, especially when roaming, before you get static or even dropped calls.  Furthermore, while Bluetooth and Wi-Fi have different protocols, they share the same 2.4GHz spectrum, and so are combining to crowd your airwaves.  It’s also important to note that streaming audio or media over Bluetooth uses 2.5 times more spectrum than voice communications. Even microwave ovens and lighting systems emit radio frequency energy that can impact your wireless communications.  The shape, layout, and materials used in a building can also affect the optimization of your wireless connections.

Plantronics offers several solutions to the problem of density:
  • ·         Wireless headsets that can be set to either broadband, which will allow you to wander, or narrow band, which will limit your range but will free up airspace for your co-workers (see Plantronics HUB and Plantronics Manager Pro).
  • ·         The CS500-XD series headsets, which operate on 900MHz frequency, providing three times the number of available channels, allowing you to deploy more wireless headsets in a specified space.
  • ·         Savi headset systems with adaptive technology that automatically adjust their transmitting power depending on how close the headset is to the base, leaving room for others (and as a bonus, conserving battery life).
  • ·         DECT technology, which not only operates on a 1.9GHz frequency, thereby decreasing density issues, but also adds an industry-standard level of security to your communications.
  • ·         An in-depth density evaluation, which Plantronics can provide free of charge, to customize a plan that will address your business’ density needs.



So whether or not your office is crowded, your technology might be.  The quality of your communications is crucial to your business relationships. Don’t let density issues negatively impact those connections.

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