In their efforts to capture market share and reduce churn, wireless operators globally spent much of the 1990s targeting residential and business customers with lower prices and new services. With the introduction of WAP and GPRS, the move towards third-generation networks was initiated.
While business users were early adopters of mobile telephony (GSM in particular with its roaming capabilities), very little effort has been put into fully integrating mobiles with corporate communications. Thus, while a GSM phone is now seen as an essential business tool, it is largely separate from the company LAN or company PBX.
Because the business community was the first to adopt mobile communications, it was essentially that community that underwrote the development of GSM, with their use providing the operator with vital cash flow and real-world deployment experience. While many service providers have largely ignored the provision of integrated service in the rush to increase the total number of customers, some have seen its value.
Hank Albertze, LATITUDE Information Technology`s Sales and Marketing Director, says: "Essentially, inbuilding GSM enables low-cost office-to-mobile calls. This allows larger companies to extend their telephone network to include mobile extensions, simplifying contact between office and mobile staff. For smaller users, inbuilding GSM solutions allow inexpensive `on-net` calls between office phones and the mobile fleet."
However, the communications world is moving fast and remote connection for data applications is becoming ever more vital, more so in fact than interconnection of voice services.
"Already used for remote access to email, GSM will become more usable as data rates are extended upwards from the current low speeds," says Albertze.
"Inbuilding GSM is a cost-effective approach for business subscribers, seamlessly connecting a mobile device to a PBX and to an IP LAN. The beauty of this solution is that the user can easily move from the office desk to a mobile environment seamlessly. The same phone and number are used and the mobile phone has access to all the PBX features. All long-distance calls can be routed over the PBX system, saving the company airtime charges and higher-tariff wireless long-distance calls."
Because inbuilding GSM also interconnects to the company`s data network, users can connect fully into the LAN applications as well as bespoke internal devices (directory backup, user groups, etc). Among the services that can be supported are unified messaging teleconferencing and directory retrieval. The use of GSM data will become increasingly important as the world moves towards 3G.
LATITUDE Information Technology is currently involved in a number of initiatives enabling customers to benefit from inbuilding GSM.
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