The Call You Can't Ignore

Ardent Partners' John Norton and other solution providers have already gotten in on the ground floor of the business revolution being ushered in by VoWLAN technology.

By melding VoIP and wireless,two of today's hottest technologies,onto the same network, solution providers are crafting VoWLAN deployments that help customers cut network costs and simultaneously improve communications and collaboration with employees who rarely sit at a desk and might otherwise be unreachable.

>> Solution providers say the convergence of IP telephony and wireless is inevitable. That's why they're getting in early and reaping revenue from the emerging technology today.

"Corporations that make themselves more available and closer to customers are more successful, and we give them the tools to do that," said Norton, president of the Plymouth, Minn.-based solution provider.

Building VoWLAN solutions has already grown into a multimillion-dollar business for Ardent Partners, which implemented its first VoWLAN solution in 2002, Norton said. The company expects to see 25 percent to 30 percent growth in its wireless voice business over the next year, he said. "It enables us to go work with many customers because we do it and many other [solution providers] don't," Norton said. "It's not a particularly easy space to play in."

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VoWLAN, also called Voice over Wi-Fi, transmits voice calls to IP-based wireless phones across the same wireless network customers are using for data. The result is that end users can essentially carry their phone extension with them as they move throughout the enterprise, maintaining access to voice-mail and all the calling features available on desk phones.

Mobility is one of the key drivers. By providing VoWLAN technology to health-care workers, for example, hospitals can improve the productivity of doctors and nurses, ensuring they spend time with patients instead of running to retrieve messages. By going wireless, customers can also eliminate cabling costs, which can run $100 to $150 per workstation. Further cost savings come from the convergence of wireless voice and data onto a single IP network, Norton said.

"One network is cheaper than two. There's less hardware, it's easier to manage, it requires less training and there are fewer parts," Norton said. Plus, a voice-enabled wireless network can be tapped to support and manage a wide array of devices, from laptops and phones to PDAs and bar-code scanners, which helps spread the cost of deploying wireless across a larger number of users, he said.

Backing solution providers are VoIP and wireless vendors that are jumping into the VoWLAN fray. Giants such as Nortel Networks and Cisco Systems, as well as smaller companies such as Colubris Networks and Meru Networks, are using this week's NetWorld&#043Interop conference in Las Vegas as a platform to tout new wares they say will pave the way for VoWLAN market growth.

At the conference, Nortel plans to showcase a bevy of new wireless products that are slated to ship later this month, including new WLAN handsets, self-configuring access ports, a security switch and its WLAN IP Telephony Manager 2245, an appliance that provides voice prioritization on the wireless network.

Cisco, which last year introduced its first VoWLAN handset at N&#043I, this year plans to demonstrate wireless functionality for its popular Catalyst 6500 Series Switch through its new Wireless LAN Services Module, aimed at allowing fast and secure roaming between access points (APs) without losing a connection.

"We've been able to achieve and sustain about 50-millisecond handoff times, AP-to-AP, with this WLAN Services Module, whether it's [between] two APs or 300 APs," said Doug Gourlay, product line manager for the Internet Systems Business Unit at Cisco, San Jose, Calif., noting that faster roaming is critical in VoWLAN deployments to avoid interruptions in phone calls.

Colubris at the show is set for the first time to introduce VoWLAN support for its portfolio of WLAN access devices through a software upgrade slated for availability in July. By tapping into the company's Virtual AP technology, the upgrade enables customers to apply different levels of security to voice and other Wi-Fi applications running on the same wireless network.

Meanwhile, Meru Networks, Sunnyvale, Calif., is scheduled to demo APs and other products at N I that use its Air Traffic Control Technology, which provides Quality of Service (QoS) to voice traffic over the wireless network.

Solution providers say such new technology can only help spark growth in a market that's already attracting attention in vertical arenas such as health care, manufacturing, government, warehousing and retail, where workers' mobility needs are high. Increased usage among other customers won't be far behind, as WLAN technology continues to penetrate the enterprise market, they say.

Market research supports these growth expectations. The worldwide enterprise VoWLAN handset market is projected to reach more than $130 million by 2006, up from $33.5 million last year, according to research firm In-Stat/MDR. For 2004, In-Stat is projecting the market will nearly double over 2003 to $64.5 million (see chart).

While some customers are restricting VoWLAN rollouts to a small number of employees, Ardent Partners already boasts several clients with more than a hundred VoWi-Fi users. One such customer, Skyline Exhibits, spent about $300,000 to roll out a VoIP system from Mitel Networks that included VoWLAN access for more than 100 of its 300 employees and scheduled upgrades to its existing Cisco wired network.

Skyline, an Eagan, Minn., manufacturer and distributor of display booths for trade shows, was unhappy with the performance of its previous wireless voice deployment, which was based on proprietary technology instead of IP and therefore was not integrated with its WLAN. Ardent Partners convinced Skyline that the company could get the performance it wanted from an IP network and, to ensure that, paid close attention to the radio frequency (RF) engineering, placing more than 40 Symbol APs throughout the 280,000-square-foot facility.

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Ardent Partners' John Norton says building VoWLAN solutions has already become a multimillion-dollar business.

While Skyline has not measured hard-dollar cost savings gained through its VoWLAN system, improvements in communications and customer-service levels make the year-old deployment a success, said John Goering, IT manager at Skyline.

Like Ardent Partners, other solution providers with strong IP communications practices report growing VoWLAN business.

Global Data Systems, for example, has about 10 VoWLAN deployments under its belt. "It's not widely adopted yet, but it is something that more and more people are looking at," said Chris Vincent, vice president of sales and marketing at the Lafayette, La.-based company.

In one of its current projects, the solution provider is implementing a Cisco IP communications system for the city of New Orleans, a rollout that by August will support 3,000 IP telephony users, including about 100 wireless users, Vincent said. "If the mayor grabs his phone and leaves, when he walks into another city building, his phone is live," he said.

Logicalis, a Bloomfield Hills, Mich.-based solution provider, has rolled out VoWLAN to about eight customers and says interest in the technology is on the rise. "In the vertical markets, 100 percent of our health-care customers are looking at it, and probably 80 percent of our manufacturing clients," said Ron Temske, director of the IP communications practice at Logicalis.

Technology vendors say they, too, expect to see growth in VoWi-Fi technology, and they are preparing their channel partners to meet that increase.

"We're making sure our VARs are fully trained," said Simon Gwatkin, vice president of strategic marketing at Mitel Networks, Herndon, Va. "Deploying an access point is not just a case of banging it up against a wall," Gwatkin said.

Wireless handset vendor SpectraLink included training as one of the primary components of its new NetLink Partner Program. In addition, Cisco and Nortel within the next few weeks are mounting education road shows in several U.S. cities to provide partners with training on wireless and VoWLAN technologies.

"We're recommending to partners that they get a few of these opportunities under their belts so they are ready and have an established reference base as the market begins to grow," said Diane Schmidt, director of product marketing at Nortel, Brampton, Ontario.

Despite the enthusiasm for VoWLAN, there's no question that it is still a young, emerging market with several hurdles standing between it and widespread adoption, which industry observers estimate is still 18 to 36 months away.

For one thing, the cost of wireless handsets remains high, averaging around $500 this year, according to In-Stat/MDR, making it difficult for customers to cost-justify VoWLAN rollouts in some cases. While prices are on the decline, the research firm doesn't expect prices to dip below $300 until 2007.

Another challenge is that Wi-Fi standards around security (802.11i), QoS (802.11e) and fast roaming (802.11r) are still under construction. Ratification will undoubtedly result in a flood of new products certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance, which will propel market growth, said Frank Hanzlik, managing director of the Wi-Fi Alliance (see sidebar). "[Standards are] going to be a strong catalyst for starting to move a lot of those VoWi-Fi applications into the mainstream," he said. The IEEE is expected to ratify the security and QoS standards later this year.

As seen among the product announcements slated to hit this week at N&#043I, clearly some vendors aren't willing to wait for standards ratification.

Barry Fougere, president and CEO of Colubris, said its solution providers' customers are demanding VoWi-Fi deployments now, so moving ahead with its own solution prior to full ratification helps push the market forward.

"We think it's a tremendous opportunity," said Fougere. "We are pushing for a common prestandards-based approach of solving [security and QoS challenges] because we can't afford to wait for 18 months for the perfect answer to be fully ratified," he said.

While solution providers expect the barrage of forthcoming IEEE wireless standards to bolster the VoWLAN market, innovations in handsets will also drive deployments. One major VoWLAN market driver will likely be the release of dual-mode mobile phones that can jump from an enterprise's internal Wi-Fi network to the public cellular network, like the one under development through a partnership between Avaya, Motorola and Proxim.

"The real mobility play in this market is when I can have an appliance,one phone, and I can [shift] between my Wi-Fi and cellular network seamlessly," said John Freres, president of Meridian IT Solutions, Schaumburg, Ill.

As dual-mode phones hit the market, cellular carriers will have to come to grips with the fact that they're going to lose some airtime to the enterprise Wi-Fi network. "It's kind of a touchy issue," said Gemma Paulo, senior analyst at In-Stat, noting that such questions could push cellular carriers to develop services to manage enterprise WLANs.

Regardless of the challenges, solution providers say they have no doubt the market will see huge expansion over the next several years. "Once you've got an [802.11]b or [802.11]g network installed and can seamlessly go between the cellular and Wi-Fi network, it's going to be a no-brainer," Freres said.