Enterprises divided in Vo-Fi plans

Wireless in the Enterprise This newsletter is sponsored by Sendio White Paper: Can You Trust Your Inbox? Your email is a vital part of everyday business productivity. But is also an extremely dangerous application, delivering viruses, worms, identity thefts and more to your computer daily. In this free report, you'll learn about the top email spam myths, and why believing them can put your business data at serious risk. Network World's Wireless in the Enterprise Newsletter, 08/22/07 Enterprises divided in Vo-Fi plans By Joanie Wexler Look at a cross-section of organizations across industries, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a consistent, common strategy for deploying VoIP over Wi-Fi networks (Vo-Fi). Plans are all over the map, but if I had to generalize, I’d divvy enterprises up into three camps. Roughly a third of Wi-Fi shops appear to be running Vo-Fi now. Another third say year after year that they plan to deploy Vo-Fi “within 6 to 12 months” – hmm? And still another third haven’t decided if they’ll deploy it at all. A number of factors are driving these mixed enterprise strategies. Among them: Get Up to Speed on the Latest in WLANs Easily stay on top of the latest developments and issues in WLAN technology, standards, security, telephony, management and more with Network World's latest Executive Guide, "Keeping Up With the Wireless Whirlwind." Click here to download! * Those already using Vo-Fi tend to be in specific industries with very localized mobile voice needs. Take nurses on a single hospital floor. This crowd absolutely requires mobile communication and can probably communicate using a single access point, so inter-AP fast roaming handoff isn’t an issue. * The status of fast roaming technology, which ensures that voice sessions won’t get dropped as users re-associate to a different AP as they roam, is a mixed bag. Cisco, which makes both WLANs and Wi-Fi handsets, has its own proprietary fast-roaming scheme. If you are using Cisco handsets with a Cisco WLAN, you’re golden. If you are using a Cisco infrastructure with someone else’s handset, you need to make sure your handset provider supports Cisco Compatible Extension software Version 4, which contains the fast roaming mechanism. Polycom (formerly SpectraLink) plans to support CCXv4 in its handsets sometime this year. Meanwhile, Polycom’s own call admission control and QoS capabilities in its SpectraLink Voice Priority (SVP) server have served niche Vo-Fi implementers wonderfully for years. However, as WLANs continue to grow mainstream, the Wi-Fi community wants fast roaming and QoS to become standard across systems. 802.11r, the fast roaming standard under construction, isn’t due for ratification until next year, with products to follow. * Finally, there are many ways to skin a mobile voice cat. For example, in-building cellular services with PBX extensions are emerging, and some companies already ingrained in a cellular culture may be anticipating those. While the many options (and these are just a few) continue to gel, many companies seem to be waiting.   What do you think? Post a comment on this newsletter

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Contact the author: Joanie Wexler is an independent networking technology writer/editor in California's Silicon Valley who has spent most of her career analyzing trends and news in the computer networking industry. She welcomes your comments on the articles published in this newsletter, as well as your ideas for future article topics. Reach her at joanie@jwexler.com. This newsletter is sponsored by Sendio White Paper: Can You Trust Your Inbox? Your email is a vital part of everyday business productivity. But is also an extremely dangerous application, delivering viruses, worms, identity thefts and more to your computer daily. In this free report, you'll learn about the top email spam myths, and why believing them can put your business data at serious risk. ARCHIVE Archive of the Wireless in the Enterprise Newsletter. BONUS FEATURE IT PRODUCT RESEARCH AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Get detailed information on thousands of products, conduct side-by-side comparisons and read product test and review results with Network World’s IT Buyer’s Guides. Find the best solution faster than ever with over 100 distinct categories across the security, storage, management, wireless, infrastructure and convergence markets. Click here for details. PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE You've got the technology snapshot of your choice delivered to your inbox each day. Extend your knowledge with a print subscription to the Network World newsweekly, Apply here today. International subscribers, click here. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES To subscribe or unsubscribe to any Network World newsletter, change your e-mail address or contact us, click here. This message was sent to: networking.world@gmail.com. Please use this address when modifying your subscription. Advertising information: Write to Associate Publisher Online Susan Cardoza Network World, Inc., 118 Turnpike Road, Southborough, MA 01772 Copyright Network World, Inc., 2007