How much can we automate the data centre? Can we bring all data together i.e. voice and data? Is the mobile worker becoming more difficult to manage in terms of IT, or is the cloud solving this problem. Lesley Hansen, group marketing director, TeleWare looks at the issues

Telephony services for mobile workers are an increasing challenge for the IT department as they are outside of the existing telephony systems. This means that calls to and from mobile phones are usually not subject to the reports and monitoring available for extension based handsets or to the controls and features such as hold, transfer, call recording and conferencing over the company network. Mobile workers therefore miss out on the convergence advantages that have been provided to other workers through the company’s investment in IP Telephony.  With increasing mobile phone spend being a serious consideration within corporate budgets there is also pressure on IT departments to introduce solutions to bring mobile telephony under the company processes.

Mobile phone based convergence provides two benefits. Firstly it takes minutes usually accounted for on mobile networks and moves those into an enterprise owned network.  Optionally external calls using the enterprise network may connect to the company’s fixed line services and leave as fixed line minutes. This gives enterprises the ability to control, monitor and selectively decrease mobile spend.

The issue of escalating and uncontrolled mobile call spend  can then be addressed by mobile based call routing which provides the capability to capture all calls made on the handset and route them by the priorities that are important to the business such as ‘least cost’ or ‘highest quality’.  This enables the business to configure the mobile to allow the user to make calls as usual but route them over a chosen route/network and therefore gain the benefit of making calls at comparatively lower tariff rates. This can be used for all calls, or on an ad hoc basis to activate for a specific call. This is, typically, used to route calls to expensive international and non geographic numbers and to take advantage of the corporate Wide Area Network while leaving the in tariff calls as they are and making best use of the mobile operator minute and text bundles. 
Secondly mobile phone based convergence can enhance calling services such as call recording and ensure call controls such as hold and transfer, particularly extension based over the corporate network, may also be extended to mobile handsets. In most cased today these capabilities are only available on fixed line extensions. Extending these features from a company’s PBX to a mobile handset means that features and functions are no longer the sole preserve of the office and are available when away from the desk or out of office. Other benefits of this form of voice focused convergence include the provision of single number reach and single voicemail.  Subscribers may use a single fixed line number which will also reach them via their mobile, with all voicemail terminating at the company PBX.

Combining local network routing and PBX extension to the public GSM network allows for an increasing number of PBX features and benefits to be accessible via mobile both in and out of the office.  Using a business telephony mobile client on the mobile phone is a good way to bring the mobile phones into corporate control and provide a fully integrated mobile application enabling users to access corporate PBX functionality from the mobile phone, including call recording for calls both to and from the mobile.

Mobile phone focused convergence, when thoughtfully considered and deployed with an overall communications strategy in mind can be a powerful enabling toolkit for an enterprise.  Convergence benefits range from and beyond call cost savings though to other hard costs such as simpler deployments and fixed handset substitution, through to softer benefits such as increased contact ability, quicker decision making, less downtime, and improved productivity.  Depending on the enterprise requirements, cellular convergence can have a marked benefit above alternate access technologies, ranging from maintaining/improving handset battery life through to an overall decrease in infrastructure required to deploy PBX functionality in a greenfield site or PBX replacement scenario.

Converging voice and data in the office is only one of four steps to complete convergence, although it serves as a platform for all.  While the main benefits of convergence on a mobile phone are voice related, the solution is an enabling platform for mobilising business process enhancement software within the office.  Furthermore, it serves as a stepping stone to providing enhanced voice functionality such as presence enabled services that encompass both the office and the mobile.

• www.teleware.com