an serve as a shortcut or alternative to multiple pages of detailed specifications. If the requirement is for additional facilities at an existing service location, circuit and facility inventory records should be studied for potential use of spare or unused capacity. New circuits and facilities should be planned with the idea that it may be possible to migrate PRACTICAL IP AND TELECOM FOR BROADCAST ENGINEERING AND OPERATIONS and consolidate all traffic on new facilities, allowing decommission of part or all of older facilities, and reducing operating expense. DOCUMENTING TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS Specific technical requirements should be accumulated in about three or four documents, depending on size and complexity of the project, including a project outline and description, network topology, spreadsheet or matrix containing cost and technical parameters, equipment, facilities, circuits, and floor space plans. All documents should be created as living documents available on one or more server sites and in paper form. Depending on the maturity of the project, changes, revisions, and releases may vary. Change is a fact of life and must be coped with at any time. Early in the life of a project, changes are likely to occur hourly, daily, or weekly. Once in operation, changes will be limited such as when people move to new work locations, or an equipment update is brought on line. Organization of the spreadsheet is probably the most critical. On large projects-tens of sites, hundreds of workstations, terminals, pieces of equipment with network connections-it may be wise to use a database manager instead of a spreadsheet, or begin with a spreadsheet and convert to a database manager. Database managers are awkward to work with in the early stages of planning; spread- sheets are awkward to work with as reporting tools as a project grows and after it goes operational. Whether using a spreadsheet or database manager, a matrix or table style document is the core of all design documents. Organized cor- rectly, it will support 