[February 25, 2005]

Whither WLAN?

By David Sims, TMCnet CRM Alert Columnist

Voice over WLAN usage will skyrocket from 6% currently to 27% by August 2006 – at least according to Infonetics Research. Almost half of the 240 companies they surveyed last November said they plan to implement mobile or location-based enterprise resource planning and supply chain management applications by 2006.

Granted that only 8% are currently using their networks for voice over IP applications, but Infonetics expects that number to rise dramatically over the next two years, with 27% expected to use VoWLAN technology by August 2006.

Yet as a recent white paper notes correctly, “ While VoWLAN has been available for a few years now, the systems on the market have always lacked the scalability, quality and usability needed to support large-scale deployments. To date, using VoWLAN systems has been an expensive proposition. Most of today’s systems are bundles of proprietary hardware and software and require that users be equipped with enhanced, or even custom devices. Given these hurdles, VoWLAN’s adoption thus far has been slow and limited mostly to select vertical markets.”

So in VoWLAN a good or bad idea? According to Techworld Dunkin’ Donuts thinks it’s a sweet idea.

Dunkin' Donuts’ application is not voice communication between people, but voice input to a warehouse "picking" system. The voice traffic is carried over the WLAN. Voice input lets the workers operate hands-free, while the WLAN unties them from a specific location for data input.

The system learns the sound of a worker's voice through speech recognition, then instruct that worker, wearing a portable computer and wireless headset, as to which items to pick from the warehouse inventory and where to deposit them for shipment. A highly accurate voice-based picking system can greatly speed warehouse productivity, compared with workers having to print and consult paper instructions.

The company runs Voxware traffic on the 802.11b 2.4 GHz frequencies, with data on the 802.11a 5 GHz frequencies. For now, it has disabled 802.11g to avoid interference with 802.11b traffic, says Boris Shubin, director of IT in the Dunkin' Donuts Swedesboro site.

The slower 802.11b (11 Mbit/sec) is used instead of 802.11g (54M bit/sec) only because Voxware doesn't yet work with the higher-speed network.

Shubin says his organisation settled on using Airespace because it is the "closest thing I've seen to zero administration in an environment where 90 percent or more of our recurring total cost of ownership is support."

For example, says Shubin, the access points will dynamically change channels if one experiences interference. And the lightweight access point architecture means Shubin makes all configuration and management changes once, to the switch, not to multiple access points.

"I'm thin on IT resources here," he says. "So this is helpful."

David Sims is contributing editor and CRM Alert columnist for TMCnet.