<<<... It wasn't a big step to add an appliance-based convergence system to this, says Race, who reckons the costs came out to under £100 per user. The DiVitas MMC appliance provides roaming between the Trapeze Wi-Fi and the GSM networks, independent of the mobile operator, and allows the mobile phones to act as PBX extensions even off site - using a DiVitas software client that runs on each phone. So far, a pilot project with four phones has been completed, and Race now plans to give dual-mode phones to around 30 staff. The project took advantage of the college's upgrade cycles "The mobile contract changes now anyway, and I was going to invest in new phones," says Race. Most users have four-year old phones, and will be moved onto dual-mode phones, which Race says have only just become practical: "This came along at the right time - there are things you can run on a phone today that were not available last year." About fifty new access points are being added to the wireless LAN at the same time, to increase capacity and fill in dead spots. Again, this was an upgrade that would have been required in any case, says Race: "The users are demanding - they want more laptops in the classrooms."

Justified by savings and flexibility

Overall, the move to converged wireless voice was easy to justify on cost grounds, even though the major benefit was in increased flexibility. "Half of our call costs are mobile - and they are increasing year by year," says Race, who pays around £30 thousand to £40 thousand a year for 100 mobile phones, which he provides for teaching staff and IT personnel who are increasingly mobile. "Education is changing," he says. "We have a lot of peripatetic staff, going out to local businesses, who like to take a phone with them." They use the phone's camera to take pictures of the work done by students on placements, he says. They also make a lot of mobile calls on campus - which can be replaced directly with VoIP calls over the wireless LAN. Similarly, for some staff on site, the dual-mode mobile phone can replace the Cisco 7960 IP deskphone - he has around 600, which cost around £200 a shot, so it's a saving worth making, he says. Race is very keen to give users a good experience - for practical reasons: "You've got to make sure the person gets the mobile phone they want," he says. "If you don't give people a choice, they won't use it - though there's always got to be a good degree of control. You have to have a selection of phones available to suit each user - and on top of that, you have to have the right software on the phone." ... more>>>