Subject: [NEXTEL-1] VoWi-Fi Calls to Users

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 00:55:29 -0400

VoWi-Fi Calls to Users
Source: Network World
Publication date: 2004-05-03
Arrival time: 2004-05-09

Early adopters deploy voice over wireless to gain mobility and cost
savings.

Organizations venturing into prestandard VoWi-Fi waters are being driven
by a critical need for real-time voice and data services. The retail,
logistics/warehousing, manufacturing and education sectors are among the
early adopters, but healthcare is leading the charge.

Rice Memorial Hospital was early onto the wireless voice bandwagon,
installing a proprietary analog radio frequency system from SpectraLink
in 1995 to augment cellular coverage throughout the facility By late
2002 some of the SpectraLink gear had been discontinued, and replacing
broken items was becoming a problem.

The Willmar, Minn., hospital wanted to move to an IP network that would
support voice. "But we were also looking to improve our cellular
coverage in the building, and MobileAccess had a converged platform that
could do both," says Jon Barber, the hospital's telecom manager.

MobileAccess uses a hybrid fiber/coaxial backbone to distribute voice
and data services to mobile users. Signals from the cellular WAN and the
Wi-Fi LAN are carried on this backbone to broadband antennas that can
radiate multiple kinds of services simultaneously. Fewer access points
are required because each can have four antennas.
"You can put in a single infrastructure, and then add different signal
types later," Barber says. "And all the [access points] are put in the
wiring closet, so they are easier to get to."

Rice was the first fully integrated system MobileAccess installed, so
"it was a painful process," recalls Barber.Voice requires a much
stronger signal than data on a wireless LAN, because the packets have to
be transmitted right the first time, and in a fixed order. After a year
and a half, users are still discovering problem spots that must be
filled in by adding an access point or an antenna.

The hospital is now in the midst of integrating a new nurse call system
with the SpectraLink Wi-Fi handsets, and Barber is looking forward to
SpectraLink's forthcoming pure- IP upgrade that eliminates the gateway
between the handsets and the PBX.

"That will get rid of equipment in the switch room, and free up a lot of
digital ports on my PBX" Barber says.
While Rice was evaluating MobileAccess, Condell Medical Center was
looking to replace an aging wireless voice network based on proprietary
Avaya access points.

Condell took a more typical route, beefing up its existing Cisco
wireless data LAN to support voice. The Libertyville, Ill., medical
center implemented a virtual LAN (VLAN) to give voice traffic priority
and added 10 to 15 access points - a $10,000 upgrade. The big cost was
handsets, and Condell spent $250,000 replacing obsolete SpectraLink
handsets with Wi-Fi models.
"We started deploying the phones last year, and it was like opening the
floodgate," says Sue Mesmer, communications supervisor for the
hospital.  Every employee who spends time scurrying around the hospital
saw the benefits immediately, and the 170 phones that were originally
planned quickly expanded to 280.

The VoWi-Fi handsets are making people and processes more efficient, and
the hospital is finding more uses for them. These include "code blue"
broadcasts when there is an emergency, as well as integration with the
nurse call system and a new patient- tracking application. The handsets
have all the features of a desktop phone, and usage can be restricted
according to job category For example, the nurses can make outside
calls, but the housekeeping staff can't.

Like the two hospitals, the State University of New York at Cortland
rolled out a WLAN years ago, but wireless voice wasn't part of the
picture until recently The precipitating event was the migration of
wired voice to Cisco IP telephony early last year.
"Once we experienced VoIP, we started populating our WLAN with wireless
IP phones," says Daniel Sidebottom, director of administrative computing
services. "Because we already had such a robust foundation in place, our
deployment costs were minimal - just the Cisco 1100 and 1200 access
points at $600 to $800 each, and Cisco 7920 phones that cost about $350
each."

The VoWi-Fi users are currently just the IT support staff, but
Sidebottom expects to begin deploying the wireless IP phones to other
departments by the end of the summer. The physical plant staff currently
makes extensive use of cell phones, and Sidebottom estimates that moving
them to VoWi-Fi could save the university as much as $25,000 to $30,000
per year.
Meanwhile, the university has implemented VoWi-Fi at its Outdoor
Education Center in the Adirondacks, some 200 miles away The phones keep
the center's staff in touch with each other, and let them make
four-digit extension calls to people at the main campus - avoiding toll
charges that can add up to thousands of dollars each year.

Sidebottom says his users are very happy with the results. "The voice
quality is so clear that you don't even notice the handoff when you move
between access points."

Mobility is supposed to increase productivity, and St. Agnes Healthcare
has actually quantified some of these gains. The Baltimore hospital was
the subject of an exhaustive benefits study after it implemented VoWi-Fi
with the help of the hands-free Vocera badge.

The study found that each healthcare unit in the 299-bed facility saved
an average of 3,400 hours per year, or the equivalent of 1.7 full-time
employees. Nurses could spend more time at patient bedsides, improving
patient care and experiencing a lot more job satisfaction.

The Vocera badge also is helping the Orange County Library System in
central Florida stretch resources and enhance services. The central
facility is a 290,000-square-foot concrete building that takes up an
entire city block in downtown Orlando, so enabling any kind of mobility
for the 150-person staff was a real challenge.

"We had just upgraded our data network to Wi-Fi, and then we heard about
this Vocera solution that was being used in hospitals," says Mary Anne
Hodel, the library system's director and CEO. The price tag for rolling
out Avaya Wi-Fi in the main facility and 13 branches, and deploying
Vocera badges to key personnel was about $45,000.

No longer tethered to a particular station, staff members can help
library patrons wherever there is a need. And they are instantly
reachable when someone has a question that requires their particular
knowledge set.  "We've really ratcheted our customer service up a few
notches," Hodel sums up.

SUNY-Cortland's Sidebottom says it's high time to get into the game.
Start small and learn the different ways of implementing voice and other
applications, and experiment with the various levels of security that
are available. "The standards are coming. You need to position yourself
to take advantage of the new technology that is emerging."

http://cnniw.yellowbrix.com/pages/cnniw/Story.nsp?story_id=50878088&ID=cnniw&scategory=Telecommunications%3AWireless&

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