 Wireless in the EnterpriseThis newsletter is sponsored by New Edge NetworksNetwork World's Wireless in the Enterprise Newsletter, 10/17/07FMC status: Who’s delivering what?By Joanie WexlerFixed-mobile convergence options for businesses are increasing. But far more of them allow enterprises to install and manage their own solutions than provide service-based alternatives from mobile network operators. For some businesses, that’s OK: “We’re certainly keeping tabs on carrier offerings, but one hesitation is you can’t be carrier-agnostic,” says Patrick Tisdale, CIO at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, a worldwide law firm based in San Francisco that is poised to trial the Agito Networks enterprise FMC system described in the last newsletter. “We might want to change carriers. Or we might need to use different carriers in different parts of the world where some have better coverage than others,” Tisdale says. He perceives that a carrier-based FMC service, when it's available, would lock his company into exclusive mobile network use with that carrier.
“But the Wi-Fi element is prevalent; we’re hopeful that an Agito-like solution will allow us to use multiple carrier devices to move in and out of offices without issue,” he says. While offerings are popping up for enterprise-based equipment to handle seamless handoff and potentially lower in-building cellular phone charges, the world’s mobile carriers currently delivering FMC – most notably, T-Mobile - are addressing the consumer market, not businesses. Mobile operators also face other distractions and tend to be more inclined to install in-building cellular systems in large customer locations to boost coverage of their own network signals than providing a dual Wi-Fi/cellular solution at this juncture. Expect to see more coming from the carriers on this front, with the typical caveat that when carriers do something, they usually do it top-down, in a very big way. That takes time, internal buy-in and investment, and the carriers are already quite busy building out their 3G and 4G networks. They are also planning for the upcoming 700MHz spectrum auctions – which, by the way, will proceed with the open-access clause, it was decided by the FCC last week. Meanwhile, on the enterprise front, the following companies are offering CPE that supports signal handoff from one network type to another: * Agito Networks plans to ship its RoamAnywhere system late this year. Other companies, such as Ascendent/RIM, FirstHand Technologies and Cisco offer systems that project PBX capabilities onto cellular networks, but haven’t tackled the handoff function — at least, not yet.
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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 New Edge NetworksARCHIVEArchive of the Wireless in the Enterprise Newsletter. BONUS FEATUREIT 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 International subscribers, click here. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICESTo 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 |
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