Network adapter cards, hubs and related fiber electronics hardware totaled slightly higher than the estimated cost of their copper counterparts. And even when it does cost more initially, fiber can save money in other ways. Like Spartanburg, the Hilton Hawaiian Village resort on Waikiki saw fiber as a way to avoid costly network upgrades in the near future. But fiber offered an important cost-savings benefit. The network's main switches are located in the computer room.
Cables run to patch panels in each department.
Fiber offered another bonus as well. Because of space restraints, the previous network's hubs were located in mechanical rooms and subject to heat and other adverse environmental conditionals. The organization would have then faced the extra trouble and expense of disguising and soundproofing the hardware, at a cost of several thousand dollars for a series of special enclosures. McHugh says the network's rollout has been trouble-free. The only glitch was a missing DOS driver, which was needed to run some legacy applications.