How can converged networks fit into to your mobile business
strategy? Sally Flood finds that convergence might be the key to
making mobility happen effectively in your company, making sure
that you can actually realise the ambitions that you had
The Holy Grail of the IT industry is a single device that provides
your workers with the ability to instantly connect to information
and services no matter where they are. The good news is that
convergence might just be the key.
Convergence gives your business the ability to deliver voice and
data to employees over a single network to any IP-compatible
device, says Tim Nelson, marketing manager at BT Business. "It
doesn't matter whether you're connecting via a PC and IP telephone
in the office, or through a laptop and WiFi hotspot at the
airport," he says.
One of the most common ways to integrate mobility and convergence
is by connecting remote and home workers to the converged network
using an IP VPN (virtual private network). "Convergence makes home
working a reality for many companies for the first time, and
removes the need for workers to be in the office," says Colin
Curtis, research and development manager with Xpert Communications,
a telecoms provider. "Given that the average home worker is 20%
more productive than an office worker, that's quite an
incentive."
For workers on the move who don't have access to a DSL connection
in a home office, it's possible to connect to a converged network
over WiFi. The protocol does now offer multimedia standards for
combined voice, data and video applications and it is possible to
deliver quality of service (QoS) over WiFi. "In practice, it's just
a case of plugging in a phone headset to your laptop's USB port and
putting some software onto the mobile device," he says. "It's
straightforward and the cost savings can be staggering."
Nelson cites the example of a colleague who was travelling in the
US. He paid his hotel $35 for a week's high-speed internet access
which let him connect to the corporate converged network and access
all his voice and data applications. When he arrived at the airport
to fly home, he needed to make a single business call from a
payphone, which cost another $35. "With the WiFi access, voice
calls were effectively free because they ran over the company's
data network," says Nelson.
At one firm in the telecoms arena, some 70% of employees regularly
work away from the office. In the past, these workers would connect
to the corporate network using ISDN, dial-up access or through
special arrangements with local PTTs. Today, they can connect to an
IP VPN which links securely to Nortel's converged network, says
Simon Wilson, Nortel's enterprise data product marketing manager.
"WiFi and DSL are cheaper and widely available for most of our
employees," says Wilson. "At the moment, it's mostly used to access
email and voicemail, but in future I can see it being used for all
sorts of applications."
At present, voice over WiFi is restricted by a lack of handsets,
says Mark Blowers, a senior analyst with UK research firm Butler
Group. "In order to be truly useful a voice device has to offer
more than one technology, but WiFi is still pretty restricted
outside the enterprise." There are signs that this is changing -
most notably the BT Bluephone, which combines a mobile and landline
phone.
Mobile workers will feel the benefits of convergence as it
develops, says Blowers. At present, convergence is used as a
shorthand for voice and data convergence; in five years' time, the
term will cover all sorts of multimedia applications. "Because
convergence is relatively new, there aren't many applications
designed for mobile workers to use over a converged network,"
Blowers says, "but as that changes, you'll start to see things like
video conferencing or location applications, which tell you where
the person you are calling is at any given time."
Intelligent devices
It isn't just the arrival of new applications that will allow
mobile workers to take advantage of converged networks. The
industry is also working on devices that will support multiple
connectivity systems, allowing users to access information wherever
they happen to be. "At the moment, you have Bluetooth devices,
cellular devices and WiFi devices, but that will change very soon,"
says Blowers. "The industry is rapidly moving towards intelligent
devices that can select the best way to connect depending on the
user's location."
For example, a device might select Bluetooth for low-throughput
communication between devices at close range, but switch to WiFi
for higher bandwidth email access from the corporate network. As
you move away from the hotspot, the device could move to a GPRS
connection.
This scenario should be strengthened by the increased adoption of
3G, says Chris Knowles, a practice leader with Computacenter. "The
industry isn't clear about what 3G is going to be used for, but the
logical idea is that it will provide connectivity when people are
on the move, or when they're in a rural area out of reach of WiFi
hotspots," he says.
Once these devices are widely available, mobility will be a key
driver of convergence, adds Knowles. "If you can put VoIP over
wireless, whether that's WiFi, 3G or GPRS, you're going to see huge
savings," he says. "Not just because of productivity gains, but
because I no longer need a desk phone. I have one device with a
soft phone installed on it, which goes everywhere with me."