Wireless – A Daunting Task for Most Enterprise IT Departments

Most enterprises are facing a daunting task with regard to managing increasingly complex networks of voice and data services inside buildings and on campus. The use of mobile broadband handsets and computing devices is not making things easier for the IT department. If a device does not work properly or the broadband experience is hampered by coverage or capacity, the IT team is most often the go-to team even if the issue is related to the mobile operator’s network coverage or available capacity.

Employees are increasingly mobile, regardless of enterprise vertical segment. Few people spend the majority of their time at their office desk. IT staff are on the run, so are doctors and nurses. Student and staff on campus go from building to building and so do most office workers. We are increasingly mobile and thus no longer tied to our desk. When the desktop phone rings, we are most often ‘not there'.

Mobility is a horizontal enterprise requirement in times where one handheld device is preferred – the mobile phone. Up until now, IT teams have been tasked with costly and complex fixed-mobile projects where the cost and resource burden has been placed on the enterprise.

For IT departments who are considering plans for new buildings, retrofitting of existing buildings or a move to a new campus, the desktop phone is always part of the Capex/Opex considerations.

Over the coming 3-5 years the majority of enterprise IT leaders will finalize its transition to one IP network infrastructure for voice and data. The desktop phone is likely to be part of the network for years to come. However, many enterprise customers will seek to replace or augment the desktop phone with one communications device – the mobile phone.

Up until now it has been cost-prohibitive for mobile operators to provide reliable 3G indoor cellular coverage and capacity to the vast majority of enterprise customers.

Buildings and campuses of all sizes require reliable cellular coverage and capacity to enable the transition to one device and a fully mobile workforce. Yet for most, it hasn’t been a possibility because the way cellular services are currently delivered - from the outside in. Existing solutions are either too costly or too cumbersome for enterprises to manage or deploy.

Soon you can outsource ‘Anything Wireless’ to the Mobile Operator

The E-RAN system, developed for and sold to the mobile operators by SpiderCloud Wireless, works analogously to a Wi-Fi controller and distributed Wi-Fi access points (APs) for the indoor cellular market. It comprises a SmartCloud Services Node (SCSN) controller that sits in the wiring closet and SmartCloud Radio Nodes (SCRNs) distributed across the enterprise work area – whether a large room, one or more floors, or a whole building.

Mobile operators can install the E-RAN system in any enterprise customer site where there is an Ethernet network, which serves as the local backhaul network. They can simply recreate their licensed macro access networks indoors or supplement it with Wi-Fi, which E-RAN also supports.

With the wireless platform, operators can add indoor pockets of coverage and capacity where needed in the form of a managed service without worrying about interference between radio nodes or between indoor radios and their macro networks. They can deploy, control and manage High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA), Long-Term Evolution (LTE) and Wi-Fi wireless networks with the E-RAN system.

The new platform can also integrate with enterprises voice networks for four-digit dialing, single-number reach and PBX feature extension to mobile phones. By requiring no client software and enabling transparent handoff between the macro and indoor networks as subscribers roam, the E-RAN self-organizing network extends enterprise customers’ voice and data applications to any standard handset or computing device. It serves as a fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) solution without the roundtrip enterprise-to-operator delays associated with Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) solutions, without requiring dual-mode handsets, and without the infrastructure overhauls mandated by IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) carrier architectures, which could take at least another 15 years to deploy ubiquitously, according to industry observers.

Soon, enterprise customers can ask their mobile operator to manage ‘anything wireless'. Stay tuned, in 2010 the E-RAN platform becomes a game changer.