|
Mobile & Wireless
Mobile Wireless Expo 2007
The pros and cons of dual-mode phones
Carriers, vendors lukewarm to device potential in enterprise space
by Jim Barthold
Dual-mode phones that seamlessly hand off calls between
mobile and Wi-Fi networks can benefit enterprises with solid
wireless infrastructure. On the other hand, the devices, which
are becoming more readily available, are neither a
tremendous benefit nor the gateway to fixed-mobile
convergence (FMC) that some advocates suggest.
In total, vendors and carriers at two panel sessions at the
Mobile Wireless Expo in New York City were basically tepid
about the impact dual-mode devices will have on enterprise
communications.
“We’ve looked a dual modality … (but) we’re just not ready to
do that yet,” said Brian Gregory, product marketing manager
for VoIP and Fixed-Mobile Convergence at Sprint Nextel,
speaking at a panel called “Building Converged Solutions."
Among other drawbacks for a carrier handing traffic over to a
fixed wireless network are concerns about “quality of service
and us being able to isolate problems. For now we’re in a wait
and see mode.”
Even with those problems, “in-building readability leveraging
the Wi-Fi network becomes a real benefit,” said Lynn Lucas,
director of Human Network@work at Cisco Systems, speaking
at the same panel. Lucas agreed that QoS “is a key issue”
but pointed out that it “does very much depend upon the
design of the wireless network.”
“The first order of business is to provide pervasive coverage
of your facility,” agreed John DiGiovanni, vice president of
marketing at Xirrus Networks, speaking at a panel called VoFi:
Technologies and Strategies. VoFi is new terminology referring
to voice-over-Wi-Fi networks.
DiGiovanni said he supported the move to 802.11n Wi-Fi to
provide greater bandwidth and more coverage and leverage
channel bonding using spectrum in the 5 GHz range to gain
even more bandwidth for multimedia applications that include
voice.
“This is the future,” he said.
The present, however, still leaves businesses with several
choices: limit the use of cellular devices by employees, which
is becoming less appealing as more workers depend on
mobile devices and mobile package rates fall; improve the
cellular coverage within the building using femtocells or other
sometimes expensive emerging technologies; or leverage the
in-building Wi-Fi network.
“I wouldn’t wait for ‘n.’ Don’t wait to deploy it,” said Isabelle
Guis, senior manager, mobility solutions at Cisco, speaking at
the VoFi panel. “The earlier you can take advantage of your
wireless LAN for data and for voice, the better.”
FMC, everyone agreed, is the end game, and “voice is one
component, but there are also benefits on the data side you
want to consider,” Guis said.
Sprint Nextel has and is pushing hard on IMS as a key
component in mobile peering, said Gregory who said the
carrier is “really into the game as it relates to FMC … it’s step
1.0 of a 10-step process.”
Verizon, too, is ready to move on into the converged space
seeing FMC as an “evolutionary process,” said Kelly Brown,
marketing manager of Verizon Business product marketing,
speaking at the converged solutions panel.
Verizon, she said, is “letting the consumer drive this” using its
existing IP network. “The next phase is to look at how we
enhance that.”
The next phase for dual-mode phones is to see how they fit
into the overall network.
“We’re all looking at how we can make this go mainstream,”
said Ben Guderian, vice president of product management at
Polycom during the VoFi panel. “Now we can start thinking
bigger.”
|
