There are lots wireless considerations on the enterprise table for 2009. If you have already met some or all of these challenges, bravo! If not, consider making some of the following New Year's resolutions to help get your wireless house in order. The five below relate primarily to mobile WANs; the next newsletter will look at another five resolutions that pertain to wireless LANs.

1. I will take a “corporate-liable” approach to handset procurement and negotiate a pooled-minutes usage plan with my cellular carrier.
This is the most cost-effective way to go in shops with more than a couple hundred handsets. In addition, special on-net pricing plans available from the mobile operators can complement these contracts to slash intra-company per-minute calling prices.

2. I will settle on an internal mobile voice strategy.
I’ll weigh whether to bring cellular indoors or build out my Wi-Fi infrastructure to accommodate voice over Wi-Fi. How people will talk on the phone while they are mobile within the company’s various locations impacts which handsets and network connection types I support (see No. 3).

3. I will craft a mobile handset strategy, including which mix of mobile operating systems and hardware my department is willing to support.
I will group mobile employees based on the capabilities they require by job function. Inexpensive, talk-only phones might suffice for a large sub-population of my employees. Standardizing on three or four models of smartphones for those who need them helps me with management and security (see No. 4). My resolution in No. 2 will help me determine if I need just cellular, just Wi-Fi or both types of access on smartphones.

4. I will address mobile device management (MDM) and security with a centralized approach.
These solutions might be a mobility management server from companies like RIM, Motorola/Good and Nokia. Or they might be an MDM service from a mobile operator or software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider. A few key capabilities to make sure I have:
* Password protection on devices with disk drives.
* Ability to remotely wipe lost or stolen devices.
* Ability to turn off texting, IM and e-mail or the ability to archive any messages from handsets for corporate governance compliance.

5. I will create international best practices to control usage and roaming costs.
Maybe I’ll look into a flat-rate global Wi-Fi hotspot service and ask users to use Wi-Fi for both voice and data whenever possible. I’ll consider disabling services that automatically send SMS messages/updates to the mobile device when it is roaming. If my carrier offers it, I might also create policy profiles that allow the automatic generation of separate corporate and personal invoices tied to a single device.

Joanie Wexler is an independent networking technology writer/editor in Silicon Valley.