The ability to maintain communications with staff and customers is essential. Connecting the mobile workforce by providing telecommunications solutions that address business continuity, mobility, and telecommunications cost control will empower employees to maintain communications effectiveness under any outage or disaster situation and proceed with “business as usual.” Essential to maintaining communications is uninterrupted access to company applications, communications tools, and essential content that’s located on the Internet and intranet. This presentation will identify and address business benefits and the expected productivity payback of expanding access to the corporate network using wireless devices and mobility applications.

The VoIP explosion is underway. VoIP is now unleashed to be viable solution for wireless and WiFi users. Mobile professionals can incorporate VoIP communications wherever they connect. This panel discussion explores the transitions in telecom, examines VoIP's current trend towards supporting mobile users, and addresses implications to consider when implementing a mobile VoIP solution. Special attention will be paid to the subject of softphones and truly mobile VoIP applications. Come to this session to learn about the true state of the VoIP mobility market.

Wireline and wireless carriers alike are currently exploring the market for fixed mobile convergence, which allows subscribers to use special two-radio phones to connect to either cellular or WLAN services, depending on best availability. With this technology, users can enjoy a single set of services regardless of their network, with special mobility technology enabling the seamless transition between networks. Networks must support multiple access types from one common core in order to provide profitable, fast, low-cost, bundled services to consumers. All of these factors are pushing wireless and wireline convergence. These issues must be resolved for wireless and wireline service providers to remain competitive. This panel discussion will examine the issues involved in migrating from separate networks to converged networks.

Mobility in the enterprise is quickly becoming a major consideration on a customer’s wish list. As more companies investigate the costs and benefits of wireless communications, they face a number of questions specific to deploying 802.11. This session will discuss many of these issues, including network security, delivering enterprise-specific features throughout an 802.11 network, technical considerations when integrating 802.11 into an existing converged infrastructure, and vendor-neutral practical applications.

Are wireless networks and technologies mature enough to deliver voice? It’s certainly easier to successfully deliver data than voice. Data can be rapidly transmitted without worrying about the effect of network delay, latency, QoS, etc. WLAN providers, equipment manufacturers, network designers and operators must now prove that WLANs and wireless handsets can meet the strict performance requirements required for high-quality delivery of voice. To achieve acceptable voice quality, they must understand relevant performance requirements that affect the network’s ability to manage voice and other real-time applications. This presentation will discuss performance requirements and the emerging standards that are being developed to support voice.

With all the noise in industry and the press over municipal WiFi zones and free Internet offers, it’s hard to separate fact from fiction in the push by cities to deploy WiFi. This session will focus on the reality behind all the hype. What are the challenges of deploying City WiFi zones? What does it take to build, manage and fund these networks? What are the trends in municipal RFPs, and funding tactics? There are several issues to be addressed. Also how does the advancement of WiMax technologies impact the WiFi ‘hot zone’ deployments and what are the roles of each technology in the future? In this session, you’ll learn the real challenges and real opportunities in the race to Municipal wireless networks.

Mobile “Campus Warriors” are beginning to utilize PDAs as an efficient replacement for laptops. The newest trend in PDAs is embedding wireless network connections, which allow users to roam across cellular, WiFi and other mobile networks without dropping dynamic voice, video, and data sessions. These new converged devices are enhancing productivity for “Campus Warriors” in healthcare and other fast-paced work environments by allowing professionals remain connected. Today’s health care settings are demanding 24/7 connectivity between the patient and the care provider and various hospital support functions like financial services, housekeeping, etc., creating real-time environments. Come to this session to see a real-world example of WiFi in a healthcare environment.

This presentation will educate you on WiFi telephony: what it is, how to tell if your wireless network is ready for voice, advantages of WiFi, WiFi versus traditional wireless phones, WiFi versus cell phones, and the future of WiFi. If you're new to WiFi telephony, then this is session is a terrific opportunity to learn all you need to know before deploying the technology.

Economics and performance are pushing WiFi telephony to the forefront of successful technologies in the workplace. Companies are saving money not only by deploying voice on WLANs, but also increasing revenues by boosting productivity in employees across the workplace. Employees benefiting from WiFi telephony's mobility are collaborating better with coworkers, responding faster to clients and overall improving performance. This session will provide attendees with invaluable tips for successful WiFi telephony deployments in the workplace. With careful planning, WiFi telephony can be used for converged applications that will continue to benefit the workplace well into the future.

This session will discuss how VoIP and VoWiFi solve real problems for enterprises and consumers alike. An “inside-view” of VoWiFi phones and the next generation of dual-mode phones (cellular + VoWiFi) will be provided, with a discussion of the key issues that enable, as well as hinder the success of this convergence platform. Topics to be discussed include developer’s view of VoWiFi and next-gen Dual-mode phones; benefits of VoIP enabled convergence for mobile communications; and key issues hindering rapid adoption of dual-mode handsets.

WiFi VoIP offers many benefits in its current state, yet it is still a nascent technology and therefore continuing to evolve. Today many operators are beginning to implement a converged service for their customers beginning with the development of enabling the transfer, or ‘handoff’, of calls between these technologies. While cellular technology automatically hands off calls between cellular towers, the hand off between WiFi and cellular (whether GSM or CDMA) is still a work in progress. As the technology and the supporting marketing plans and packages evolve, carriers can choose to embrace the technology or view it as a competitive threat. If embraced, new applications and competitive pricing structures can help add value, increasing customer loyalty at a lower cost structure.