So tell me this: Why hasn't the cordless phone found a place at work, too? Once I leave my desk, my sophisticated office phone might as well be dead for all the good it does me. I can't take it, or any of its capabilities, with me anywhere else in the building. Sure, I could turn on call forwarding--just don't ask me how often I actually do.
But never mind me. What about all the wandering workers without desks--nurses, retail clerks, or the facilities maintenance crew? For them, staying in touch requires a redundant communications system--a desk phone plus a mobile phone, walkie-talkie, or pager.
That's why I want to tell you about a trend I've spotted--one that could put the equivalent of a cordless phone into your workplace and keep you connected no matter where you are in the building or on the campus.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a column about a company called TeleSym and its system for turning a Pocket PC device into a wireless voice-over-IP (VoIP) phone. Since then, I've learnt about several other companies with Wi-Fi phones of their own. Just this week, Cisco Systems, NEC America, and SpectraLink pulled the wraps off a wireless IP phone system, to be available in the second quarter. They join Symbol Technologies, which already has Wi-Fi phones on the market.
Last week, at the Embedded Systems Conference in San Francisco, a two-year-old startup named Vocera won the best-of-show award for a wireless VoIP system targeting hospital nurses and retail clerks. Judges were so impressed, they--get this--picked Vocera over the much-hyped Segway human transporter.
I haven't had the opportunity to get my hands on any of the products from Cisco, NEC, SpectraLink, or Symbol yet. But I did get a good look at the Vocera system; the company even offered us an on-camera glimpse of its product.
For what it's worth, Vocera was my pick for best of show, too. I want to tell you about it not because I consider it a product your company should go out and buy. Instead, I'm holding it up because it represents an emerging technology that should be on your radar--especially if you're a small business owner, department manager, or IT pro.
The Vocera system consists of two main components.
The first is server-based software, which integrates with a company's existing Wi-Fi and public telephone networks. Because so much of the intelligence is stashed on the server and not on the device, the system sports such robust features as speech recognition, one-to-one calling, conference calling, and broadcast paging.
The second component is communications badges. Because the Vocera system is server-based, its handsets are extremely small--only four inches tall and one-and-a-half inches wide. They're also light, under 60g. That makes them wearable. Speech recognition allows for hands-free operation. There's no keypad. A single battery charge can supposedly provide two hours of talk time and 24 hours of standby.
Brent Lang, Vocera's vice president of marketing, says the system, introduced last October, has already been installed at 14 sites, including the Mercy Medical Center in Roseburg, Ore., and Denver Health in Denver, Colo. Similarly, Symbol's NetVision phones are being used by nurses at Glenbrook Hospital in suburban Chicago.
It's significant that Wi-Fi phones are catching on in healthcare, where reliability really is a matter of life and death. Also, given the financial plight of healthcare these days, there aren't many other industries where efficiency and cost effectiveness count for more.
But while installations like these represent a promising start, they aren't necessarily harbingers of widespread adoption.
For one thing, this technology isn't cheap. Vocera charges US$350 for each handset, and US$20,000 for a 75-seat software licence (the minimum installation). Cisco plans on charging US$595 for its 7920 wireless IP phone when it hits the market in June. SpectraLink will charge US$400 for its NetLink e340 and US$599 for its more rugged NetLink i640.
Furthermore, Cisco's phone won't work with any other wireless network but its own. And while the Telecommunication Industry Association (TIA) has adopted standards for conventional cordless phones, it's only now getting to work on ones for wireless IP phones.
James Bress, the president of AST Technology Labs, in Melbourne, Fla., chairs one of the TIA subcommittees that will consider such standards. He actually tests phones for a living. He notes that wireless VoIP is a far more demanding application than transmitting data by Wi-Fi. Like video, voice communication happens in real time. To further complicate matters, while a cordless consumer phone might typically have just one user and one base station, a VoIP network might have to support several users and several bases simultaneously.
Combine those factors, and you've got a complex technical challenge. That said, I'm convinced that both VoIP and wireless IP are technologies on the come; technologies that combine the two, like these Wi-Fi phones, are just as inevitable. That's why I think you should expect to see the cousin of the cordless phones you use at home start showing up at work.
What do you think? Would you like to have a cordless phone at work? What would it take to convince you to try a Wi-Fi phone? TalkBack below or e-mail edit@zdnet.com.au.
I'm currently using a Panasonic KX-TC187AL-W cordless at work but would prefer something like DECT.