* The move to dual mode
The success of voice over Wi-Fi (now officially called “Vo-Fi”) depends on a number of factors, both technical and business-oriented. Somewhere very near the top of the list are the need for dual-mode cellular/Wi-Fi phones (with decent battery life) and integrated services from carriers.
For example, who’s really willing to juggle multiple phones – a cellular phone and a Wi-Fi phone, for example – for use depending on whether you are at home, at the office, or on Route 80? Business users getting comfy with mobility will quickly begin to pine for a single device that they can carry around for all their voice, messaging, calendaring and contact applications.
Without integration, the number of gadgets to keep track of could quickly pile up, depending on the role you are playing and your location. Each would likely contain overlapping contact and calendaring information but in different formats, driving the user to distraction.
The good news is that there is evidence that dual-mode Wi-Fi/cellular phones are en route.
Motorola says its CN620, its long-in-development dual-mode 802.11a VoIP/GSM handset, is imminent and should not be held up by development partner Proxim’s recent Chapter 11 filing. The CN620 will be distributed by its third development partner, Avaya.
And Nokia said earlier this month that it would license Cisco technology to integrate dual-mode Nokia Series 60 handsets with Cisco’s CallManager IP PBX over Wi-Fi. Nokia, in a press release, said it intends to begin “to extend the highly valuable services of the PBX to Nokia mobile devices as well as enable use of enterprises’ private infrastructure for part of mobile voice traffic.”
This is a very interesting and telling statement. Typically, there have been at least two phone networks: the one you use at work, with all its custom, rich features and the public network, which works differently (and, possibly a third: softphone client-plus-Internet). At least two voicemail systems to check, two sets of features to learn and use. Blending Wi-Fi and cellular connections with enterprise PBX calling features in a VoIP handset is approaching telephony nirvana.
