Agito Adds More Mobile UC Capabilities

Agito, which currently boasts about 30 partners, made its name with its ability to offer seamless hand-offs between cellular and Wi-Fi networks. At its core, the RoamAnywhere Mobility Router ties together cellular, Wi-Fi and IP telephony, extending unified communications, PBX and desk phone functionality to dual-mode mobile devices.

Pejman Roshan, Agito's co-founder and vice president of marketing, said the new advancements will help Agito's stable of more than 30 channel partners get clients up to speed on fixed-mobile convergence, while also giving them tools to help clients save calling costs.

With RoamAnywhere version 3.0, Agito ties in a new function dubbed "UC Mobilized," which takes presence information on the go to streamline communications and collaboration. Essentially, UC Mobilized helps users find the right person and determine the best way to communicate with them through a series of static presence, rich presence and location cues, Roshan said. The client uses a buddy-list format to indicate whether the best way to reach someone is via voice, SMS, instant message or e-mail. The location-aware capabilities put new icons next to user names to show whether contacts are at work, at home, on the road or in a custom location.

Because Agito integrates with corporate presence servers, it acts as a mobile extension of Microsoft unified communications solutions, and presence status can be set from the desktop or a mobile device. Integration with Cisco Systems and IBM solutions is coming soon, Roshan said.

"Our intent is to build a platform that can mobilize what enterprises have already invested in," Roshan said. "We take what Microsoft and Cisco do and mobilize that bit."

The Agito client uses a familiar buddy-list format with well-known colors and states, meaning users won't have to relearn the interface. Agito also adds more context to presence status, showing the standard away and available icons, while also adding the ability for users to denote whether they are on a call, in a meeting or out of the office by putting additional symbols in the red, green and yellow presence icons, or dots.

Adding context and location information, Roshan said, lets users "eyeball it and make their own decisions."

Along with updating its presence features with UC Mobilized, Agito also added new client innovations, which enhances mobile-device roaming and battery life and adds access-point-to-access-point handover when users are on the Wi-Fi network.

In addition, version 3.0 adds global multinational support to route international calls through the PBX to save costs. The latest version also expands Agito's ecosystem to include support for Alcatel-Lucent and ShoreTel PBX and added 12 new dual-mode handsets to its roster of compatible devices. There are several new CDMA devices, which means Agito now supports both GSM and CDMA handsets. Agito now supports more than 40 handsets globally.

Agito has updated the Least Cost Routing capabilities in its policy engine, to ensure calls are placed and received through the most cost-effective method to cut down on international and roaming charges.

Agito has also added a Global Roaming feature set, including Automatic Reverse Dial, Dynamic Anchoring and Automatic SIM Swap. Reverse dialing reduces the "calling party pays" rates of many European and Asian countries by automatically initiating calls from the PBX instead of the cellular phone, while Dynamic Anchoring lets companies use carrier-provided, free mobile-to-mobile calls. Automatic SIM Swap lets users use prepaid SIM cards without losing calls and voicemail due to new country-specific numbers.