A building becomes intelligent when its HVAC, lighting, power, low voltage, and other systems speak the same language, share meaningful information, and work together to enhance the building’s performance, add functionality and achieve performance, wellness, and engagement goals. This gives building owners the ability to install apps, such as Comfy, which provides the occupant control over zone lighting and temperature from their phones. Apps like Rifiniti also generate statistics about the usage of the rooms in a building. more

In the old days, telecommunications consisted of only the telephone network, and the design services were provided free of charge by the local telephone company. The internal personnel responsible for this design were known as the BICs, or building industry consultants. The fee for this design was covered by telephone subscribers as a part of their regular service.

Back then, coordination was not a major concern. BICs would work with architects and engineers in the planning phases and continue throughout construction by working with the contractors.

But all of this changed with industry deregulation in 1984. Not only did it break up the phone company into the regulated bell operating companies for local service, with AT&T continuing to provide long distance, but it also shifted the ownership of the cabling in a facility to the customer.  more