Talk to the hand
Talk and standby times are important considerations when choosing handsets, says Zulty’s Warhurst, as some models are more like cordless phones that sit on a charger while not in use rather than true mobile devices. Brad Reed, marketing manager at Nokia Enterprise Solutions, suggests that matching user expectations in this regard is an important part of a successful implementation. Symbol’s Stock agrees. He says if one charge lasts a full shift “you end up with
satisfied customers”.
Encryption and flexibility (ie echoing all or most of the features of your desk phones) should also be kept in mind. Zultys is one of the first vendors to give users the ability to change their “presence” settings from a WiFi handset rather than requiring them to use a desk phone, says Warhurst. Since this automatically changes the call routing rules (eg to voicemail while in a meeting or to mobile while at lunch) it saves the user’s time and improves the efficiency of call handling.
WiFi handsets can be stylish—one example is D-Link’s DPH-540, which features contemporary flip-phone styling along with echo cancellation and packet delay compensation—but this will continue to be a niche market, Telsyte’s Chaisatien says, with a limited shelf life when fully integrated WiFi cellular handsets come onto the market at a reasonable price.
Certain handsets already support WiFi and normal cellular telephony, but switching between them isn’t automatic. “You have to make that deliberate connection,” Chaisatien says. He says some people are using two mobiles as a workaround: one is connected to a desk phone or softphone, the other one is carried. Unanswered incoming calls are passed to the first mobile, which rings the other. This arrangement takes advantage of “family and friends” or “fleet” plans that give very cheap calls between the mobiles—certainly cheaper than redirecting the call at fixed to mobile rates. “It may look a bit awkward, but it can deliver what customers are looking for,” says Chaisatien, even though the required software costs a few hundred dollars.
But dual-mode handsets mean that a PABX can tell when a mobile is on the premises and then direct calls to it via WiFi rather then GSM—“compelling economics,” according to Aruba’s Humphries.
Handset manufacturers see this as an opportunity to encourage business people to replace phones, so there may be some good deals: a Motorola dual-mode handset is selling for $US200, and “they’ve got to be doing a loss leader on that,” he suggests.
Nokia has announced three handsets (E60, E61 and E70) with built-in WiFi and VoIP capabilities. These dual-mode handsets should arrive this year. While some may need to upgrade their WLANs “organisations can now start to remove desk phones entirely . . . and issue a single phone to workers,” says Nokia’s Reed. This will reduce infrastructure costs, and is especially important in “hot desking” situations or where staff can often be away from the premise. Some systems will still provide each user with a normal fixed-line number, partly for “prestige” reasons and partly because it may be cheaper for callers, especially those in the local area or on untimed tariffs.
Looking ahead, handsets may offer seamless roaming between WiFi and GSM or 3G, and then the technology will take off, says Chaisatien. But Reed says he hasn’t seen a company roadmap for the introduction of this feature and notes “there’s some fairly significant technology challenges”.
3Com’s Brown agrees: “That seems to be the part that’s challenging the industry at the moment.” He says from a commercial perspective it requires cooperation from carriers. “I don’t think we’ll see that . . . until a good way into next year.”
Humphries is more pessimistic, suggesting it is at least two years away. For now he observes that people are used to losing GSM coverage in particular places such as car parks, so they’ll similarly cope with having to replace calls initiated over WiFi if they leave the building.
SIP softphones will also be built into mobile handsets, but this more relevant to SMEs Reed suggests. “From a corporate perspective they’re not looking to access public hotspots. The main priority is in-office or on-campus access,” he says, adding that to utilise PABX features such as call routing (where a user dials an international number on the handset but the call is actually routed via the PABX to reduce the call cost). This also works when visiting an overseas office—calls back to Australia are carried over the IP network so national rather than international
rates apply.
Current attention, however, is being directed to the way vendors are linking their PABXs with mobile handsets to provide features such as call redirection, call hold, divert to voicemail and directory lookup. For example, Avaya offers a version of its One-X softphone for the Nokia Series 60 platform. The first local organisation to trial this product is St George Bank. “We see great potential for this product in terms of its functionality, usability and potential to increase the productivity and efficiency of our workforce,” says Paul Bristow, executive manager of IT network services
at Avaya.
Avaya’s software means one number reaches the individual’s desk and mobile phones and allows centralised call recording and accounting. It also makes it easy for workers to turn off the business side of the phone while remaining available on their private number.
Earlier trials involving more than 100 users in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific found 89 percent were satisfied with the Avaya Mobile client, 72 percent liked the ability to enable or disable the business extension-to-cellular feature, and 56 percent said that they had experienced an increase in productivity and in the usage of their mobile phone for business operations.
Reed notes that this type of integration will help to manage the personal use of business phones—calls can be restricted to numbers listed in the corporate directory, or any not listed could be deemed private and recharged to the individual concerned. At present, organisations are unlikely to use VoIP over a mobile data link (like with Avaya’s softphone) as voice tariffs are more negotiable and data traffic is relatively expensive.
“The hard truth is that VoIP is not a particularly efficient way of carrying voice,” says Jonathan Withers, chief executive of Personal Broadband Australia (PBA; a Commander subsidiary and the operator of iBurst in Australia). “GSM is more efficient by a factor of four or five while iBurst is far more efficient at carrying megabytes of data than 3G, by a factor of five or more.”
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