Mobility is taking the enterprise space by storm – everyone is toting a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or one of each. It’s all about what device happens to be the most convenient at the time and the theory behind unified communications – anytime, anywhere, any device. The adoption of mobile devices in the home and their relevance in the business space has helped drive a new standard for enterprise networking, which is rapidly becoming a wireless opportunity, offering not only the convenience and flexibility of in-building mobility, but WiFi networks are much easier and cost effective to deploy than Ethernet. Furthermore, the latest wireless standards largely eliminate the traditional performance gap between wired and wireless and, when properly deployed, WiFi networks are at least as secure as wired. This session will discuss the latest trends in enterprise wireless, the secrets to successful deployments, as well as how to make to most of your existing infrastructure while moving forward with your WiFi installation.

The panelists are:

• Shawn Tsetsilas, Director, WLAN, Cellular Specialties, Inc.
• Perry Correll, Principal Technologists, Xirrus Inc.
• Adam Conway, Vice President of Product Management, Aerohive

Cellular Specialties in this context is a system integrator, and one of their partners is Aerohive. Aerohive’s special claim to fame is that they eliminate the WLAN controller, so each access point controls itself in cooperation with its neighbors. The only remaining centralized function is the management. Aerohive claims that this architecture gives them superior scalability, and a lower system cost (since you only pay for the access points, not the controllers).

Xirrus’s product is unusual in a different way, packing a dozen access points into a single sectorized box, to massively increase the bandwidth available in the coverage areas.

So is it true that Wi-Fi has evolved to the point that you no longer need wired ethernet?

Voice over WLAN has been deployed in enterprise applications for years, but has yet to reach mainstream adoption (beyond vertical markets). With technologies like mobile UC, 802.11n, fixed-mobile convergence and VoIP for smartphones raising awareness/demand, there are a number of vendors poised to address market needs by introducing new and innovative devices. This session will look at what industries have already adopted VoWLAN and why – and what benefits they have achieved, as well as the technology trends that make VoWLAN possible.

The panelists are:

• Russell Knister, Sr. Director, Business Development & Product Marketing, Motorola Solutions
• Ben Guderian, VP Applications and Ecosystem, Polycom
• Carlos Torales, Cisco Systems, Inc.

All three of these companies have a venerable history in enterprise Wi-Fi phones; the two original pioneers of enterprise Voice over Wireless LAN were Symbol and Spectralink, which Motorola and Polycom acquired respectively in 2006 and 2007. Cisco announced a Wi-Fi handset (the 7920) to complement their Cisco CallManager in 2003. But the category has obstinately remained a niche for almost a decade.

It has been clear from the outset that cell phones would get Wi-Fi, and it would be redundant to have dedicated Wi-Fi phones. And of course, now that has come to pass. The advent of the iPhone with Wi-Fi in 2007 subdued the objections of the wireless carriers to Wi-Fi and knocked the phone OEMs off the fence. By 2010 you couldn’t really call a phone without Wi-Fi a smartphone, and feature phones aren’t far behind.

So this session will be very interesting, answering questions about why enterprise voice over Wi-Fi has been so confined, and why that will no longer be the case.

• The first generation was the autonomous access point.
• The second generation was the wireless switch, or controller-based WLAN architecture.
• The third generation is a controller-less architecture.

The move from the first generation to the second was driven by enterprise networking needs. Enterprises need greater control and manageability than smaller deployments. First generation autonomous access points didn’t have the processing power to handle the demands of greater network control, so a separate category of device was a natural solution: in the second generation architecture, “thin” access points did all the real-time work, and delegated the less time-sensitive processing to powerful central controllers.

Now the technology transition to 802.11n enables higher capacity wireless networks with better coverage. This allows enterprises to expand the role of wireless in their networks, from convenience to an alternative access layer. This in turn further increases the capacity, performance and reliability demands on the WLAN.

Aerohive believes this generational change in technology and market requires a corresponding generational change in system architecture. A fundamental technology driver for 802.11n, the ever-increasing processing bang-for-the-buck yielded by Moore’s law, also yields sufficient low-cost processing power to move the control functions from central controllers back to the access points. Aerohive aspires to lead the enterprise Wi-Fi market into this new architecture generation.

Superficially, getting rid of the controller looks like a return to the first generation architecture. But an architecture with all the benefits of a controller-based WLAN, only without a controller, requires a sophisticated suite of protocols by which the smart access points can coordinate with each other. Aerohive claims to have developed such a protocol suite.

The original controller-based architectures used the controller for all network traffic: the management plane, the control plane and the data plane. The bulk of network traffic is on the data plane, so bottlenecks there do more damage than on the other planes. So modern controller-based architectures have “hybrid” access points that handle the data plane, leaving only the control and management planes to the controller device (Aerohive’s architect, Devin Akin, says:, “distributed data forwarding at Layer-2 isn’t news, as every other vendor can do this.”) Aerohive’s third generation architecture takes it to the next step and distributes control plane handling as well, leaving only the management function centralized, and that’s just software on a generic server.

Aerohive contends that controller-based architectures are expensive, poorly scalable, unreliable, hard to deploy and not needed. A controller-based architecture is more expensive than a controller-less one, because controllers aren’t free (Aerohive charges the same for its APs as other vendors do for their thin ones: under $700 for a 2×2 MIMO dual-band 802.11n device). It is not scalable because the controller constitutes a bottleneck. It is not reliable because a controller is a single point of failure, and it is not needed because processing power is now so cheap that all the functions of the controller can be put into each AP, and given the right system design, the APs can coordinate with each other without the need for centralized control.

Distributing control in this way is considerably more difficult than distributing data forwarding. Control plane functions include all the security features of the WLAN, like authentication and admission, multiple VLANs and intrusion detection (WIPS). Greg Taylor, wireless LAN services practice lead for the Professional Services Organization of BT in North America says “The number one benefit [of a controller-based architecture] is security,” so a controller-less solution has to reassure customers that their vulnerability will not be increased. According to Dr. Amit Sinha, Chief Technology Officer at Motorola Enterprise Networking and Communications, other functions handled by controllers include “firewall, QoS, L2/L3 roaming, WIPS, AAA, site survivability, DHCP, dynamic RF management, firmware and configuration management, load balancing, statistics aggregation, etc.”

You can download a comprehensive white paper describing Aerohive’s architecture here.

Motorola recently validated Aerohive’s vision, announcing a similar architecture, described here.

Here’s another perspective on this topic.

Here’s the session description:

The communications market has been evolving to fixed high definition voice services for some time now, and nearly every desktop phone manufacturer is including support for G.722 and other codecs now. Why? Because HD voice makes the entire communications experience a much better one than we are used to.

But what does it mean for the wireless industry? When will wireless communications become part of the HD revolution? How will handset vendors, network equipment providers, and service providers have to adapt their current technologies in order to deliver wireless HD voice? How will HD impact service delivery? What are the business models around mobile HD voice?

This session will answer these questions and more, discussing both the technology and business aspects of bringing HD into the mobile space.

The panelists are:

• Jan Linden, VP Engineering, GIPS
• Jim Machi, Senior Vice President, Marketing, Dialogic Corporation
• Doug Makishima, COO & VP of Mobile & Personal Communications Business Unit, D2 Technologies, Inc.

This is a deeply experienced panel; each of the panelists is a world-class expert in his field. We can expect a highly informative session, so come armed with your toughest questions.

The DiVitas solution plugs a small but important gap in Avaya’s product line. Avaya already has a mobile unified communications solution, called one-X Mobile.

One-X Mobile extends PBX features to cell phones, notably the ability to give out a single number that rings on both your cell phone and your desk phone; the ability to do PBX-related actions like 4 digit dialing and transfers; visual voicemail; and the ability to move a call in progress between the cell-phone and the desk phone.

The DiVitas product offers a comparable solution set, but goes beyond one-X Mobile with Wi-Fi voice and a range of social networking features including IM and Presence. Because it uses Wi-Fi, the DiVitas solution requires a dual-mode handset. Virtually all new smartphones are dual-mode, but with the exception of Nokia’s Eseries and Nseries, few of them are well suited to voice over Wi-Fi. One-X Mobile uses the cellular voice channel rather than Wi-Fi, so it runs on a wide variety of phones.

For IM related features both DiVitas and Avaya’s desktop Integrated Presence Server use open source Jabber software. The two will be integrated with each other by the end of the year.

For now the DiVitas handset software (client) is not integrated with the one-X Mobile handset software – the customer will choose one or the other for each user. The DiVitas client and the one-X Mobile client will each retain their different look and feel, and the one-X Mobile client will continue to run on single-mode phones and the DiVitas client on dual-mode.

In a recent interview, Klotzkin said that one-X Mobile is sufficient for most customers, but that there are a few for which dual-mode functionality is essential. Partnering with DiVitas enables Avaya to satisfy those customer needs. One such customer is CSX, the freight company. Some of its far-flung operations are in areas with no cellular coverage; Wi-Fi solves this problem. Avaya has been working with CSX on dual-mode solutions since 2004, when Avaya, Motorola and Proxim introduced the very first dual-mode system.

According to Vivek Khuller, CEO of DiVitas, “CSX has been working with Avaya since the earliest days of dual-mode telephony, and they are finally satisfied. It’s an important accomplishment for both our companies.”

Because the DiVitas solution uses smart-phones CSX gets a useful side benefit, namely that it can run proprietary application software on the phones, eliminating the need for its employees to carry a laptop. The other side benefit is that even in areas of cellular coverage the Wi-Fi connection can be used to save on cellular minutes.

So everybody gains. Avaya plugs a troublesome gap in its product line; DiVitas gets an excellent distribution channel; the Avaya channel adds a fully supported best-of-breed solution to its portfolio; and end users get the familiarity of Avaya with the handset technology of Nokia and the DiVitas software that weaves them together into a user-friendly package.

But the Storm was an experiment in another way by Verizon. The other three major American mobile network operators have capitulated to Wi-Fi in smartphones. Against the new conventional wisdom, Verizon decided to launch a new flagship smartphone without Wi-Fi. The Storm looks like a trial balloon to see whether Wi-Fi is optional in modern smartphones. If the Storm is a success, it will demonstrate that it is possible to have credible business smartphones without Wi-Fi. But if it turns out to be a flop because of other factors, it will not be a proof point for Wi-Fi either way.

But Wi-Fi is a closed issue by now for all the network operators, perhaps even including Verizon. Phones have lead times of the order of a year or so, and controversies active back then may now be resolved. Verizon covered its bets by launching three other smartphones around the same time as the Storm, all with Wi-Fi (HTC Touch Pro, Samsung Omnia, Samsung Saga).

Before its launch, AT&T hoped that the iPhone would stimulate use of the cellular data network. It succeeded in this, so far beyond AT&T’s hopes that it revealed a potential problem with the concept of 3G (and 4G) data. The network slows to a crawl if enough subscribers use data intensively in small areas like airports and conferences. Mobile network operators used to fear that if phones had Wi-Fi subscribers would use it instead of the cellular data network, causing a revenue leak. AT&T solved that problem with the iPhone by making a subscription to the data service obligatory. T-Mobile followed suit with the Google phone. So no revenue leak. With the data subscription in hand, Wi-Fi is a good thing for the network operators because it offloads the 3G network. In residences and businesses all the data that goes through Wi-Fi is a reduction in the potential load on the network. In other words, a savings in infrastructure investment, which translates to profit. This may be some of the thinking behind AT&T’s recent acquisition of Wayport. The bandwidth acquired with Wayport offloads the AT&T network relatively cheaply. AT&T’s enthusiasm for Wi-Fi is such that it is selling some new Wi-Fi phones without requiring a data subscription.

The enterprise market is one that mobile network operators have long neglected. It is small relative to the consumer market, and harder to fit into a one-size-fits-all model. Even so, in these times of scraping for revenue in every corner, and with the steady rise of the Blackberry, the network operators are taking a serious look at the enterprise market.

The device manufacturers are way ahead of the network operators on this issue: the iPhone now comes with a lot of enterprise readiness Kool-Aid; Windows Mobile makes manageability representations, as does Nokia with its Eseries handsets. RIM, the current king of the enterprise smartphone vendors also pitches its IT-friendliness.

Wi-Fi in smartphones has benefits and drawbacks for enterprises. One benefit is that you have another smart device on the corporate LAN to enhance productivity. A drawback is that you have another smart device on the corporate LAN ripe for viruses and other security breaches. But that issue is mitigated to some extent if smartphones don’t have Wi-Fi. So it’s arguable that the Storm may be more enterprise-friendly as a result of its lack of Wi-Fi. Again, if the Storm becomes a hit in enterprises that argument will turn out to hold water. If the Storm is a flop for other reasons, we still won’t know, and it will have failed as a trial balloon for Wi-Fi-less enterprise smartphones.

But DiVitas uses a Wi-Fi connection for your calls, and they have chosen to use the standard land-line codec, G.711. The effect is startling – a little disorienting even; we are so used to the horrible GSM codec that when a cell phone sounds as good as a land-line the subjective illusion is that it sounds much better.

This is one of the reasons that the type of voice over Wi-Fi solution offered by DiVitas is way better than the one offered by the telco industry, called UMA. UMA uses the GSM codec even over Wi-Fi connections.

But DiVitas didn’t stop with the sound quality. DiVitas has done an excellent job in several other technical areas. The fundamental technology of fixed mobile convergence is the ability to hand off a call in progress from the cellular network to the Wi-Fi network and vice versa.

This is very challenging, and it is an area where DiVitas claims to lead. So the first thing I did after turning on the phone was to make a call to check it out. I didn’t need to look at the on-screen indicator to know that the call was running over my office Wi-Fi network. The sound quality (did I mention this before?) was superb. So I walked out of range of the WLAN and sure enough the call handed over to the cellular network without dropping. There was a brief interlude of music and the call continued. Going back into the WLAN coverage area the handoff was completely seamless, perceptible only by the improvement in call quality as it moved from the cellular to the WLAN network.

Superior sound quality and seamless handover, while impressive to an engineer who knows what’s entailed, are not really sexy to regular users – it’s just a phone behaving like you would expect. DiVitas takes it to the next level by overcoming another technical challenge, delivering a polished, well thought-through, feature rich and well integrated user interface on the phone.

Actually, the DiVitas software client for the handset overcomes two challenges. The technical challenge of integration with the phone’s native software environment, and the design challenges of usability and usefulness. User interfaces are a matter of personal taste; the best are those that don’t get in the way of doing what you want. I disappointed the people at DiVitas by discarding their carefully written instructions and forging ahead by trial and error. Considering the potential consequences of this behavior I got away lightly. Everything worked the way I expected it to, and there were some nice touches, including Skype-like presence icons by the names in the directory.
While we’re on the topic of the directory, one thing that jumps out is the four digit phone numbers.

This is an indicator of yet another set of technical challenges that DiVitas has overcome to deliver their solution, namely integration with the corporate PBX, and presentation of the PBX features through the cell-phone user interface. DiVitas users will actually get a superior experience of the PBX through their cell phone compared to their desk phone. This is because the DiVitas software has a computer industry heritage rather than a telco heritage; it takes advantage of the nice big color screen with features like the presence icons and voice mail presented in an on-screen list like on the iPhone.

So the big news here is that a product has finally caught up with the hype around enterprise Mobile Unified Communications. All my criticisms (DiVitas got an earful) are nitpicking. For me the system worked as advertised, and that’s saying a lot.

The idea of the article is that voice over Wi-Fi for cell phones is competing with femtocells, and that femtocells may win out. The article distinguishes between business voice and consumer voice, saying that service providers see femtocells as “an important stalking horse for greater control of corporate customers. ” This gives a hint of why femtocells may be unattractive to businesses: many of them would rather not yield this control.

Consumer voice service is controlled by service providers. They have three options in this space: do nothing, deploy femtocells or deploy Wi-Fi. Do nothing is the obvious best choice, since neither of the other options carries a revenue upside. But poor coverage in a home discourages usage and risks cancellations of subscriptions. So in areas of poor coverage something like femtocells or UMA (voice over Wi-Fi) is attractive to service providers. For both technologies the service provider subsidizes the wireless router, but femtocells will remain more expensive than Wi-Fi routers because of their lower sales volumes, so Wi-Fi is more attractive on this count. But UMA requires phones with Wi-Fi, while femtocells will work with any phone in the service provider’s line-up, including legacy ones. So the customers’ experience of femtocells is better – they can choose or keep the phone they want and still get improved coverage at home. This benefit of femtocells clearly outweighs the marginal price advantage of Wi-Fi routers. Femtocells may help subscriber retention in another way: a Wi-Fi router is not tied to any particular cellular service provider, while a femtocell only works with the carrier that supplied it.

The situation in businesses is different. They generally prefer to control their own voice systems, which is why they have PBXs. But a substantial number of business calls are now made on cell phones, even on company premises. These calls don’t go through the PBX, so they are not least-cost-routed and they are not logged or managed by the IT department. Femtocells don’t fix these problems, but Voice over Wi-Fi does. Not service provider Voice over Wi-Fi, like UMA, but SIP-based Voice over Wi-Fi from companies like DiVitas and Agito. What about phone choice though? Won’t corporate customers be stuck with a limited choice of handsets? The answer is yes, only a limited number of phones have Wi-Fi: less than 10% of those sold in 2008. But in the category of enterprise smart phones, like the Nokia Eseries and Blackberries, the attach rate of Wi-Fi will soon be close to 100%.

So femtocells are a good way for service providers to remedy churn caused by poor residential coverage for consumers, but Wi-Fi may be the better option for businesses that want to regain control over their voice traffic.

Why is this huge news? Well, as the press release points out, by 2011 annual shipments of cell phones with Wi-Fi will be running at roughly 300 million units. The Wi-Fi in these phones will be used for Internet browsing, for syncing photos and music with PCs, and for cheap or free voice calls.

The certification requirements for Voice-Personal are not aggressive: only four simultaneous voice calls in the presence of data traffic, with a latency of less than 50 milliseconds and a maximum jitter of less than 50 milliseconds. These numbers will produce an acceptable call under most conditions, but a network round-trip delay of 300 ms is generally considered to approach the limit of acceptability, and with a Wi-Fi hop at each end running at the limit of these specifications there would be no room in the latency budget for any additional delays in the voice path. The packet loss requirement, 1% with no burst losses, is a very good number considering that modern voice codecs from companies like GIPS can yield excellent sound quality in the presence of much higher packet loss. This number is hard to achieve in the real world, as phones encounter microwave ovens, move through spots of poor coverage and transition between access points.

Since this certification is termed “Voice-Personal,” four active calls per access point is acceptable; a residence is unlikely to need more than that. Three of the four access points submitted for this certification are enterprise access points. They should be able to handle many more calls, and probably can. The Wi-Fi Alliance is planning a “Voice-Enterprise” certification for 2009.

There are several things that are good about this certification. First, the WFA has seen fit to highlight voice as a primary use for Wi-Fi, and has set a performance baseline. Second, this certification requires some other certifications as well, like WMM power save and WMM QoS. So far in 2008, of 99 residential access points certified only 6 support WMM power save, and of 52 enterprise access points only 13 support WMM power save. One of the biggest criticisms of Wi-Fi in handsets is that it draws too much power. WMM power save yields radical improvements in battery life – better than doubling talk time and increasing standby time by over 30%, according to numbers in the WFA promotional materials.