Network, is a much-maligned word, with business leaders often resenting having to schmooze and hobnob with potentially influential contacts in order to get ahead. However, the truth is that no senior executive is likely to get very far in the corporate world today without doing the hard yards in terms of building relationships. But networking is not about being a smooth operator and using people to get what you want. It’s about developing long-term, trusting relationships with essential connections – in which you give as much (or more) than you take.

Usually each floor is one or more separate networks (using WiFi access points a lot, particularly in conference or meeting rooms) with everything ending up in a comms closet somewhere physically close to the lift shafts. Ethernet goes into the closet to a switch/router and the data gets routed onto fibre which goes down the lift shaft to the basement. In the basement there’s a connection between fibre in the building and one of the close-by fibre rings in the city. That’s essentially “The Internet”. Building management will usually own the switches/routers on each floor as well as the fibre connections in the basement. You may be lucky and find that the floor you use is pre-wired. If not you’ll have to arrange that. But remember, even WiFi ends up as ethernet.