* Managing the “borderless” corporate net
It’s challenging to put an enterprise mobility plan in place that provides adequate coverage for users, addresses all the necessary aspects of security, and is at least somewhat future-proof.
There’s a growing mix of wireless access types to evaluate and manage, for example. Some emerging services will be based on subsequent generations of existing 2.5G/3G cellular and 802.11 wireless LAN technologies.
So it’s important to ask carriers about the backward compatibility of notebook PC cards and handheld network connections with previous generations of services. You want users to be able to roam from a newer service area to an area with an older service and still be able to connect using the same device.
Meantime, 802.16e-based WiMAX service, due in 2007, and FLASH-OFDM-based network services both purport to offer mobile 1M bit/sec user speeds and will compete with traditional cellular services. And many cellular notebook PC cards and wireless handheld device connections are specific to certain carriers, largely because the technology differs. So providing adequate access usually entails deploying multiple services.
However, there’s a crossover point at which you don’t want to break the bank or make life unwieldy by using too many providers, cards, devices and services.
Common thinking is that mobile devices will eventually contain multiple network connections and that the devices will be smart enough to select the most appropriate network available in a given circumstance and support internetwork roaming. For now, though, transparent failover from one network service type to another isn’t happening at a services level. It will require billing and settlement cooperation among industry players that didn’t materialize at the ISP level. So it’s unclear if, how and when such cooperation will transpire in the mobile world.
In the meantime, investigating the use of a network services aggregator who handles all the back-end billing and settlement on your behalf is worthwhile. You gain the ability to bundle multiple services on a given mobile device with a common user interface. This option gives users the effect of having multiple network services with the benefit of you getting a single integrated invoice and managing just one supplier. Generally, aggregators — among them Boingo Networks, GoRemote and iPass — are in the business of handling the security aspects of mobility, too.
More on security next time.
