This award of spectrum opens up new opportunities for one of the licensees, TeleWare, to provide fixed and GSM mobile integrated networks fully supported by TeleWare products. The company has set up a new subsidiary company, Private Mobile Networks Ltd, to further exploit the spectrum. Last January saw the successful alpha trial of the solution. The spectrum allocation now allows the company to extend the product offering to enterprise customers, with key clients having commenced beta trials.
The solution enables companies to integrate cellular telephony with the enterprise PBX or IP-PBX infrastructure. At the heart of the offering is a the private mobile exchange (PMX) that utilizes the existing ubiquitous mobile handset in order to support an integrated IP, wireless solution for employees while in the office environment, avoiding the need to utilize wireless LAN (WLAN) infrastructure and new telephones with multi-wireless technology capability.
When an employee is within private GSM network range, the mobile telephone becomes an extension of the company telephone exchange. This is a simple, secure process, with only registered mobile telephones able to access the network. Once registered, the functionality of office telephones becomes available on the mobile handset.
There are a number of ways a user can be associated with the private network. The mobile telephone can be provided with a SIM that enables the telephone to connect to the private network and allows the handset to work in a similar way to a digital enhanced cordless telecommunications (DECT) style telephone.
Where connectivity is required to both the private and cellular networks, the options are to have a roaming agreement with a mobile network operator, dual SIM cards, or to manually select the operator from the telephones menu. Each option has its own advantages and deployment will depend on the specific customer needs for flexibility, security, cost, and control.
The solution enables the deployment of private GSM networks that will significantly lower the cost of using mobile telephones in the campus-based environment. Additionally, organizations with multiple sites will be able to route calls from each private GSM network telephone across an IP network, further reducing expense.
Before adopting a combination of WLAN and cellular technologies to lower on campus mobile telephone costs, it is strongly recommended that organizations consider the use of private GSM networks as an alternative, which can exploit existing mobile telephones and uses GSM, a technology specifically designed for voice usage.
Source: OpinionWire by Butler Group (www.butlergroup.com)
