Sprint integrates wireless services with Cisco Unified Communications Manager

Sprint has integrated its wireless services with Cisco's Unified Communications Manager in a move Sprint says will increase companies' ability to manage their mobile devices.

Unified Communications Manager is a software-based call management system that's primarily used to track and manage VoIP communications services and devices, including handsets, conference bridges and voice mail services. (Compare unified communications products.) By integrating its wireless services with Cisco's communications management software, Sprint wireless president Dan Dooley says that Sprint can converge fixed and mobile lines, and also allow "all calls within your enterprise to be 'on-net,'” meaning that all mobile calls made from within the enterprise can be tracked and logged.

Sprint is delivering its wireless integration service directly through the IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) that the company uses to implement its IP-based telephony and multimedia services. Because the IMS architecture is built into Sprint's IP/MPLS network, the company says that its wireless integration service will require minimal equipment on customer premises and will allow for intelligent routing and calling capabilities wherever it is deployed.

Sprint says that all of its 3G CDMA-based  phones will be fully integrated with the Cisco Unified Communications Manager, and that calls can be transferred seamlessly between Sprint mobile devices and Cisco devices such as the Cisco Unified IP phone. With mobile devices integrated into Cisco's system, companies can place the same limits and policies on their wireless services that they place on their wireline services. For example, an IT department can mandate which users are allowed to make international calls on their wireless devices or which users are restricted to only making intraoffice calls.