Mobility Solutions

DECT

Many businesses have staff who need to be able to communicate without being tied down to a desk. With DECT (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications), businesses can give their workforce the freedom to roam throughout the workplace, whislt retaining the level of functionality available at the desk.

DECT handsets can now, with advanced systems such as the Aastra Intelligate, be “twinned” with a desk terminal: twinned phones can be contacted by a single extension number, share the same contacts and voicemail, and calls can even be seamlessly handed off from desk to cordless, merely by picking up the DECT handset from its cradle.

DECT can be made use of by businesses of all types, but it is particularly suitable for the following roles and sectors:

• Manufacturing
• Management and Executive Staff
• IT Staff
• Warehousing & Logistics
• Retail
• Security
• Education - Senior Leadership Team and Physical Education Staff

DECT over IP

Aastra’s DECToverIP® combines the superior range and call quality of DECT, a proven, reliable, secure mobility solution, with the flexibility and advanced featureset of a VoIP based communications solution.

DECToverIP does this by using SIP DECT base stations: these are base stations that communicate with the phone system using VoIP, rather than having to be connected via an individual cable running back to the system. This permits base stations to be located anywhere that a connection to the company’s network exists – this could be at another site entirely, permitting users to use their DECT handsets at any of the business’ sites.

In comparison with wireless LAN handsets, DECT is able to achieve much greater range, requires less power (thus providing longer battery life), requires less base stations to cover the same area, and achives much more seamless handovers between those base stations when moving from one area to another.

Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC)

FMC is the provision of the ability of a mobile device to communicate via a company’s main phone system when in the office, and via the cellular mobile network when off-premises. This can be achieved by using bluetooth, DECT, or WiFi when in the office, or by the use of a femtocell (a very short range, typically only a single building, mobile phone basestation.)

With current technology, call handover between the two modes of communication is difficult to achieve, but whilst not on a call the transition can be made seamlessly. This is likely to change with the introduction of Voice Call Continuity, or VCC.

Business analysis firm IDC has reported that almost forty percent of the global workforce is now mobile, so FMC’s ability to make your communications solution location independant has never been more important.