VoIP provider CTO hints at mobile VoIP product

Friday, 09 November 2007 00:00

News that Unified Communications and mobility solution in the pipeline.

Is it over hyped or the next big thing?

Brian O’Sullivan CTO of Voicenet Solutions gives us his view.

Unified communications is a technology that simplifies a business user’s ability to communicate with one device instead of multiple handsets, be it at home, at work or roaming.

With the advent of cheaper calls, VoIP and accessible WiFi, the next step for business users is a unified communications solution. Or more precisely a unified voice communications solution. The drive and the market for a cost-effective, reliable business solution is most certainly with us.

Landlines to mobile costs are too high – business users are spending 80% of their communication costs making landline to mobiles calls. Furthermore it is estimated that 70% of business users still use their mobiles over their handsets, even when they are sitting at their desks. This is presumably because the numbers are stored in the mobiles. But

Established Solutions

We have looked at the established solutions that are currently available but felt that none really fulfil the needs of the business user or adapts the features of the landline handset to the mobile one.

GSM gateways are the stalwarts. They turn expensive landline to mobile into mobile to mobile calls. This does not necessarily make life easier but it can make it much cheaper. However there is a limited sweet spot in terms of size of gateway, with too small having too few SIM’s to cover calls to all operators, and too big gets noticed and upsets the GSM radio designers by saturating local base stations. The future also isn’t bright, as it is widely expected the EU and OFCOM pricing crackdown will cause operators to take a dim view of GSM gateways.

Finally there is the corporate mobile solution for large tailor-made packages only offered to big businesses by mobile networks to get the most cost effective landline to mobile rates.

Newer Solutions

Pico or Femto cell gateways are available to users who can not get a mobile network. Mobile operators put in a personalised base-station so customers can use their mobile phone via their landline. With suitable commercial inducements, the user could do without a landline – but it is very early days for this technology.

The most feature rich and cost efficient is however to connect to a voice network via WiFi access point using a GSM WiFi mobile. Two problems arise from this however and that is the compatibility of the handsets - it needs to be able to recognise WiFi and talk VoIP, secondly and perhaps most importantly, the quality of the WiFi connection.

Over Hyped

Though effective in terms of the technology, WiFi GSM does not live up to the claims of unified mobile communications. Businesses and media have over hyped the capabilities of WiFi hotspots’ quality. In many areas of the country the WiFi connection simply isn’t good enough. And this isn’t a technical problem – it is a direct result of commercial imperatives: Many WiFi hotspots are delivered with standard 50:1 retail DSL. This together with no separation for normal data traffic, could make the voice experience miserable – with loss, delays and echo all likely. This could cause a trough of disillusionment for WiFi GSM, if promises are made that WiFi hotspots can replace the GSM network today – when the truth is they can’t yet.

Companies who are offering consumer services are racing for the bottom ground in costs, which tends to ignore quality and therefore will ultimately affect the market and we could see a drop in uptake.

The Future

Our solution is to put in a high quality WiFi connection in to each business and home location. Calls will be guaranteed within workspaces as each site will have built-in QoS facilities. Furthermore every handset will be able to utilise all the features currently available on the Voicenet Solutions platform such as Call recording, do not disturb, web portal, call reporting etc, so customers can use their mobile in the same way they would their office phone.

We’ve already had good feedback from clients when we have gauged their interest. For example one client, a construction firm, would be able to have a WiFi hub installed in a porta-cabin then contractors and employees could walk around the site using their mobiles on our VoIP network. For larger sites we simply install more WiFi hubs.

As well as the enhancement of connectivity our clients could make substantial savings. It really is an exciting proposition.

We believe we have a reliable solution around the corner and if talks continue to go well with an international mobile manufacturer we aim to have beta testing by the end of the year and the product on the shelves by early next year.

It really could be the next big thing.