The companies need to cooperate to make their products work together
In an attempt to expand further into the business wireless market, Cisco Systems Inc. has announced that it will be working with Intel Corporation, Nokia, Research In Motion (RIM) and other technology world leaders in order to drive enterprise adoption of voice-ready wireless networks.
For some time now, the promise of cellular/IP convergence enabling voice conversations that will be seamlessly handed off from WLAN, or WiFi, networks to cellular operators has served as the Holy Grail for the data networking industry.
But new specifications like the Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) technology by niche companies like Kineto Wireless and the emergence of the 802.11n standard have accelerated the notion that WiFi telephony represents a viable alternative for IP communications.
The foundation of a voice-ready wireless network begins with a Cisco Unified Wireless Network. Designed to complement a variety of voice clients, the Cisco Unified Wireless Network is optimized for voice. It builds upon a highly-scalable, low total cost of ownership architecture, which is designed to support pervasive deployments that are typical of customers with mobile voice applications. Additionally, innovative features in the solution, such as end-to-end quality of service, and fast secure roaming backed by a portfolio of access points with enhanced radios, make the Cisco Unified Wireless Network "voice-ready".
Building upon the explosive growth and widespread adoption of voice-over-IP (VoIP), and Wi-Fi networks, Cisco’s voice-ready wireless capabilities of Cisco Compatible Extensions create the foundation for enterprise organizations that want to capitalize on these converging technologies and make voice over Wi-Fi a business reality.
Voice-ready wireless is an end-to-end solutions approach that addresses the convergence of VoIP and wireless networks and allows enterprises to flexibly extend the mobility benefits of wireless networks to their voice communications. Critical to this solution are client devices with fully integrated advanced wireless LAN capabilities to ensure optimal performance. To optimize clients and wireless network components, Cisco is working with Intel, Nokia, RIM and other industry innovators, so that enterprises can simply deploy highly secure clients that are interoperable and capable of supporting advanced features required for voice.
Wireless LANs are being deployed in greater numbers among enterprise and commercial markets. As well, these same markets/users are seeing the ROI from VoIP deployments. As CIOs and IT administrators begin to realize that Wi-Fi is more than just an access medium, they are beginning to take advantage of mobile services, such as voice, location tracking, etc. as an effective and additional benefit of having a WLAN in place, according to Chris Mckie, Cisco spokesperson.
In fact, just recently, Cisco’s Linksys division, the leading consumer vendor of WLAN hardware, announced plans to support 802.11n.
For its part, Cisco said in its press release that it is doing its part to enable voice-ready wireless capabilities with Cisco Compatible Extensions and the Cisco Unified Wireless Network. Cisco’s Compatible Extensions program enables interoperability between client devices and Cisco WLAN infrastructure. New updates to the Compatible Extensions program support voice applications in areas such as security, improved roaming across campus environments, and enhanced management features to detect and mitigate radio frequency interference. As well, the developments include improvements to extend client battery life, call prioritization for optimal voice quality of service, and analysis of key voice attributes such as jitter, delay and loss to ensure a high quality user experience.
If such products prove successful, according to Philip Solis, senior analyst of wireless connectivity research at ABI Research, “it will validate the idea and the importance of voice-over-Wi-Fi. Even a system providing a limited service, without operator-supported handoffs, offers rewards in the form of cheaper calls and better indoor coverage.”
Still, while Cisco is able to make headway with handset and client manufacturers, ABI’s Solis hits upon a key barrier preventing wide-scale industry adoption – the technology’s acceptance with operators.
ABI Research would urge mobile operators who lag behind in offering converged services to pick up the pace, or risk losing revenue to their nimbler competitors, or because their customers find lower-cost workarounds, Solis concluded in a research report back in January.
What the partnership lacks at the moment is any products to talk about. Cisco says it’s leaving that to its program partners to announce. RIM, for example, already sells a BlackBerry device that works with WLANs instead of cellular networks. It makes sense that kind of product will interoperate with Cisco gear, so IT administrators could more easily manage wireless voice communications. Voice over wireless means companies can extend the voice-over-IP networks they already have and converges them with WLANs. It has the potential to change the way people stay connected at work, letting employees to take their phone extensions wherever they go.
To be sure, Cisco officials declined to attribute the timing of the news to any particular event but rather to the growing amount of data that indicates the early trends of the convergence of VoIP and WiFi networks.
The Cisco Compatible Extensions program aims to ensure widespread availability of client devices that are interoperable with a Cisco WLAN infrastructure and to take advantage of Cisco innovations for enhanced security, mobility, quality of service and network management.