ITN has been working with several healthcare related firms over the past few years with great success.  ITN has installed MERU Networks wireless equipment in many different healthcare facilities ranging from a small doctor office to a regional hospital serving multiple floors and hundreds of users & patients.  One of our first clinics to adopt the MERU Wireless product had cycled through other brands such as Cisco and Aruba with poor results.  These products had failed to perform at the level required for accuracy of data input, proper coverage, interference, and most important to the doctors at this clinic, ease and consistency of connection.  It’s unfortunate that they purchased inferior solutions twice but the good news is that this clinic was still willing and interested to depend on wireless for their architecture.  Four years later, the MERU Networks system in this clinic is still performing flawlessly.  With Meru, healthcare organizations can ensure that physicians and caregivers stay continuously connected throughout the hospital, with toll-quality voice and seamless roaming. Meru supports critical mobile applications at the point of care, enabling hospitals to confidently deploy innovative solutions for mobile access to patient records, patient monitoring, dosage verification, voice, and asset tracking. Easy to deploy and simple to manage, they deliver the industry’s best user experience with low total cost of ownership.

In the past, other posts have touched on the different preparation points if you plan to migrate to VOIP.  The structured cabling team at ITN was recently given an opportunity to design and quote an emergency structured cabling solution for a client.  Most folks don’t re-wire their office on an emergency basis so you might wonder what the rush was all about.  It turns out that another vendor sold this client a ShoreTel VOIP telephone system.  While the ShoreTel VOIP system isn’t as strong as the AVAYA IP Office solution, no VOIP system should be installed onto a Category 3 infrastructure with subpar Ethernet switching.  Sadly the ShoreTel vendor may have seemed eager to “make a sale” and either never had the best interest of the client in mind or simply did not possess the basic knowledge concerning VOIP and Ethernet switching on a Category 3 cable infrastructure.  ITN was asked to provide pricing on replacing the 15 year old Category 3 infrastructure with Cat 5e so that the new ShoreTel phone system would work properly.  There is a great deal more preparation that goes into providing VOIP for business clients than just “selling a box and some phones”.

Some people think that having a VOIP telephone system will eliminate their long distance charges.  The short answer is that a new AVAYA IP Office with VOIP will eliminate only some of your long distance charges (remote users, office to office calls, etc..) but the details of that story should be covered in another post. 

Let’s talk long distance ONLY and how $ 400/month or more can be vastly reduced.  A powerful solution from VoSky (www.vosky.com) leverages Skype technology to bring you outbound calls placed from your current phone system out over the internet.  The VoSky box is installed (logically) in between your current phone system and your incoming internet connection.  A few ports of your phone system are programmed for all outbound long distance calls which routes them into the Vosky box and out over the internet.  For a small monthly fee for your Skype membership, you receive significantly reduced long distance charges.  One ITN client reduced their monthly long distance bill from $ 5,000 to $ 800 per month!   The VoSky system can be installed and work with any phone system and will be a powerful technology to reduce costs.

VOIP has been “all the buzz” the last year or two and touted as the next big tool for business, but is it really a good fit for you?  If new Ethernet switches are considered in the budget, then the overall cost of VOIP is usually higher than Digital.  Digital would never require re-wiring the office where VOIP might.  Having VOIP requires the separation of voice traffic and data traffic, or the execution of a network assessment to see how well the “network” will handle the addition of voice if voice (VOIP) and data traffic were converged. 

We take a different approach because the built-in features of the latest generation of VOIP systems are also available on the AVAYA IP Office in the digital configuration too!  Remote workers, quick phone moves, and “hotel-ing” are the primary benefits to VOIP.  The AVAYA IP Office has the ability to have VOIP, Digital, and Analog devices ALL working off of the same phone system therefore we can configure your office to be “all digital” while having your remote users on VOIP!  ITN can program the ability to do “hotel-ing” on any group of phones allowing for random access for transient workers.  When you look at the big picture, VOIP is not the answer for every business.  Maybe our competitors tout VOIP because their systems won’t do digital? 

The iPad, another WLAN device on ITN’s MERU wireless network!

A week or two ago, the iPad was launched.  Most folks saw the size, performance, and well thought out features of the iPad as the immediate draws.  At ITN, the iPad suggests to us another serious movement towards mobility.  The iPad has the ability to connect to all four recognized WiFi standards;  A/B/G/N.  HP and other major manufacturers working on their tablet sized computers suggest clearly that our future is about mobility and that these mobile devices will need to connect at greater and greater speeds and performance.  That is where the “enterprise level” wireless LAN from MERU Networks and ITN comes in!  Imagine an educational environment or office environment where collaborative work can be done without being constrained to your desk.  This new mobile environment will require the strongest and best in wireless connectivity including slice of time fairness, QOS rated voice, virtual cell technology, and air traffic control functionality of controller based traffic.   

The AVAYA IP Office phone system has an available feature described and marketed as “Twinning”.  Twinning is an AVAYA software license installed on the AVAYA IP Office that allows for the simultaneous ringing of your desk phone and your cell phone.  The first possible scenario would be if a call is transferred from the front desk/reception or if the call was routed in from the “auto attendant”.  Either way, normally only your desk phone would begin ringing but with Twinning, now your cell phone rings simultaneously too!  Imagine a fellow coworker dials your 4 digit extension thinking you are at your desk or a client has called your direct dial number (DID).  Your desk phone and cell phone will begin to ring simultaneously in this Twinning scenario too.  The advantage to this solution is that the person calling in only has your DID or office extension number but is able to reach you on your cell phone.  Twinning can be turned on and off by the touch of a button your desk phone.  Mobile sales people, construction project managers, and residential real estate agents are just some of the few folks who have taken advantage of this AVAYA IP Office upgrade.  I almost forgot, if the call isn’t answered by you using either your desk or cell phone, the caller is placed into your desk phone voice mail rather than your cell phone voice mail.  A feature I take advantage of is to have my personal voice mail box at the office send me a text whenever a message is left there showing the caller’s phone number and message notification but that’s news for another blog.

Would it help you in your everyday business activities to have your incoming faxes being delivered directly to your email inbox?  Rather than deal with the staff traffic jam at the fax machine, the lack of timeliness, the ink cartridges/toner,–ITN can attach a Multi-Tech Fax Server to your AVAYA IP Office allowing you to receive only your faxes in your email inbox.  Heavy document users such as mortgage/escrow/title companies have loved this functionality and ITN has other clients who have remote users who obviously don’t have access to the “office fax machine”.  Your AVAYA IP Office phone system will have to have a T-1 with a block of DID numbers but most firms large enough to consider this already have a T-1 and DID’s.

802.11 N and modern security advances from MERU have eliminated the top two reasons for hesitation to migrate to wireless, speed and security.  A third reason can now be considered, especially in the Seattle/Bellevue area where so many are concerned about the environment.  Picture a typical facility with 250 workstations, each with their own phone and computer.  Historically each workstation would be supplied with a voice cable and a data cable totaling 500 Category 5e cables (or 750 in the case of 3 cables per location) running through the ceiling back to the server room.  This cabling represents hundreds of pounds of mined copper, cable sheathing produced from petroleum products, plastic and metal patch panels, and the energy consumed in mining and manufacturing all this equipment.  Every time the company moves to a new space, they have to re-cable the new facility at a significant cost to their budget and environment since they can’t take the cabling with them.  For nearly the same price as a cabling infrastructure, the same staff could be served 802.11 N data speeds and QOS rated voice via MERU wireless without all the copper, steel, petroleum, mining energies, installed each time in the ceiling AND after the initial MERU investment, the company would save significant money on each facility move by relocating their MERU WLAN with the rest of their stuff.  Although AMP NetConnect cabling products satisfy RoHS standards and have one of the only lead free cable plants, there is nothing more environmentally friendly than no cable at all.   Check this out

We’ve already had a chance to chat about how MERU wireless allows you to transition from a cell call to VOIP call on the WLAN using a “Dual Mode” cellular phone.  This technology brings up another future opportunity worth discussing.  Imagine a future where your dual mode cellular phone is your ONLY phone!  No more “desk phone”, no more “checking voicemail at the office”.  Software applications downloaded to your dual mode phone will tie to the AVAYA IP Office allowing your mobile phone to take on much of the same features and functionality that you are used to in a desk phone.  Wouldn’t it be great to have the mobility found of your mobile phone but with the functionality of your desk phone?  Conference calling, call routing, hunt groups, tiered voicemail options, call center integration, etc.. are all things that could be combined with the mobility of your dual mode phone.  The power of your only phone being your mobile phone is possible now using AVAYA IP Office and MERU Wireless Networks.

Sure, some of your cell phones out there have a “data plan” where you have internet access when you need it.  Mobile phone manufacturers have phones on the market today that we described as “dual mode” cell phones.  These Dual Mode phones can automatically connect to your office’s wireless LAN when you walk into the building eliminating the use of your cell phone minutes!  You could be in the middle of a conversation leaving your car and walking into the building when your dual mode phone will automatically switch your call from “cellular” call using a tower connection to a “VOIP call over the WLAN without interruption!  Now this transition from Cellular to WLAN is only possible if your wireless LAN is truly rated for QOS (Quality of Service).  MERU’s Air Traffic Control system and QOS rated WLAN makes this happen.  Imagine 100’s of staff not using minutes but still taking advantage of true mobility!  MERU’s WLAN also clears the way for the elimination of the “desk phone” as your cell phone can become your only phone.