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Fund Your Network the Right Way

One day (maybe now) you're going to upgrade the wiring in your office building or install Wi-Fi. But don't ask users to pay for it. Ask them for a loan, instead.

By N. Dean Meyer

April 30, 2008 — CIO — How would you feel if the phone company charged you for wiring your house, and then claimed to own the in-premises wiring and charged you a service fee for its use?

"Not fair!" you'd say.

But this is exactly what some IT departments do. They demand funding from clients to wire new buildings, to augment the wiring in existing buildings, and to install wireless access. Then IT claims to own the entire network and charges clients for the connectivity! Naturally, clients get upset. They feel they're being double-charged, even if the calculations can show that's not true.

Beyond this, clients demand control over their spending. In our market economy, nobody tells you that you have to buy something you don't want. Thus, it would be natural to assume that if clients are asked to pay for any portion of the IT infrastructure, they have a right to decide what to buy. Controversy arises when IT wants to change the network and clients say no, or when clients want to use a different technology than what IT proposes. If IT forces them to buy things they don't want—under the guise of "policy" or "technical imperatives"—then clients feel they've lost control of their money and resentment is inevitable.

Furthermore, we're accustomed to a simple rule: If you paid for something, you own it and have every right to control it. So when clients fund infrastructure, they have every right to feel they "own" the assets they paid for. But this assumption undermines IT's ability to manage an enterprise network.

When it comes to building wiring, there's even more confusion. Business units are tenants in buildings owned by a corporate facilities department. If clients pay for the wiring and then move, does the next tenant have to reimburse them? Or does the facilities group pay for and own the wiring—in which case does it decide what kind of network to put in?

When I found such confusion within a state government's IT department, I thought it was an isolated case. But then I found the same controversy within a university's IT department, and again within a corporate IT department. When I asked around, I found confusion about who pays for network infrastructure to be commonplace—and worthy of a column to sort it out.

Why Ownership of Infrastructure Is Confusing

To begin, let's consider the challenge from the viewpoint of the IT department. IT needs funding for the one-time costs of installing building wiring and wireless access. Then it needs funding for the ongoing operational costs of the network.

Whether the IT department charges clients directly, allocates its costs or has its own budget (which clients believe is provided to IT to benefit them), ultimately clients pay. You can't ignore the issue for long just because you don't charge back your costs to clients. If clients look at where your budget went, they'll see that it went to buy infrastructure instead of the projects they requested. Psychologically, it's all their money.

 

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