Wouldn’t it be cool if the functionality of your company’s PBX (News - Alert) could be reliably and securely extended to all of your employee’s cell phones, PDAs – even their landline phones? Can you imagine the efficiencies that could be gained by having a single number for every employee, making them reachable no matter where they are, or what type of technology they have access to?


Well there’s no need to imagine - such a system does exist: It is Ascendent Systems’ Ascendent Voice Mobility Suite - and it is already being used by numerous Fortune 500 companies to streamline communications and boost employee productivity.

As explained by Theron Dodson, director of Enterprise Voice Mobility for Ascendent, during a recent interview with TMCnet, Ascendent Mobility (which is the core of the Suite) reliably and securely extends the functionality of an enterprise’s PBX to any wireless or landline device.

“You can think of us as push desk phone - in that we extend the desk phone functionality and identity to the wireless device - and do it a secure way,” Dodson said. “It’s really a middleware approach.”

Dodson said although there are other software makers out there who can deliver this same functionality, a key differentiator for Ascendent Mobility is that the system can deliver it over any type of architecture - and can push it out to multiple end points.

The solution, he said, is “generally for on-premise equipment,” and it works with all types of phone systems, “so we can support Cisco, Nortel (News - Alert), Avaya (News - Alert) … we can support those simultaneously … plus we also support traditional TDM and IP.”

“And we support any kind of end-point - different carriers - different devices- landlines using POTS, cellular phones, IP or WiFi endpoints,” he added. “So it is truly an enabling middleware strategy.”

Unifying all of the end points via the PBX brings many advantages to the enterprise. In addition to being able to call employees on virtually any phone using their four digit extension, the software can be used to ring multiple end devices simultaneously, and thus can be used by a user to track down the person they are trying to reach, no matter their location.

“The thing the executives like … is that it is simultaneous ring,” Dodson said, “meaning that if an incoming call rings your office phone, it will simultaneously your cell phone, your home office, a hotel office, your BlackBerry (News - Alert) - wherever you set it to ring. There is no maximum number of devices that can be part of your profile and toggled on and off.”

Dodson said “there are other products out there that do simultaneous ring, where it rings maybe one other phone besides your desk phone - but you don’t have control over when the remote phones ring.”

He said Ascendent’s system delivers a menu that lets the user turn phones ‘on’ and ‘off’ using the phone or PDA keypad – thus giving the user control over where they can be reached. In addition, because all incoming calls are routed through the company’s PBX, that means calls can be identified as coming from within the organization - and thus can be given priority over calls which originate from outside the network. Dodson said the software’s ‘do not disturb’ functionality gives the user the ability to control who can call, on what phone, and when.

Dodson explained that this functionality is critical because, over the past ten years, voice has become necessary in the enterprise, and therefore deserves priority over other forms of communication.

“Voice is intentional,” he said. “In other words, if you call someone, you really need to talk to them. You know, e-mail - and BlackBerry in particular - has removed the need to use voice to pass information. When I want to give you information, I send you an e-mail, or I send you an Outlook calendar, or I send you and SMS. But when I call you there is emotion, there is urgency, there is complexity – which can’t be handled by those other domains. That makes the value of taking that phone call that much higher.”

Dodson said from his standpoint, “the idea that we have five different phone numbers isn’t going to hold up forever.” He said he sees it as “inevitable” that one day we will all have one.

One huge advantage that Ascendent has over its competitors is that it can extend the functionalities of the PBX over regular POTS architecture. If a user only has access to a landline POTS phone (such as when one is traveling in an area where broadband is scarce), all they have to do is dial a number and enter a code to enable that phone. With a few strokes of the keypad, the landline has full PBX functionality via TDM.

In addition to delivering Single Number Reach and Simultaneous Ring, the system also sports Single Integrated Voice Mail, where if a user can’t answer the call, the software automatically sends it into the corporate voice mail system. Dodson said this eliminates the problem of “non-responsiveness” that often results from “outside” voicemail systems (such as those on cell phones), which can result in lost messages. As he explained, similar (“find me, follow me”) systems rely on a timing mechanism that can cause a call to be dropped before an outside system switches over to voicemail (i.e. the voicemail system doesn’t pick up in enough time). Thus the Ascendent system provides a greater degree of reliability, in that the user is always guaranteed to get all voice messages via the company PBX (once again, the PBX delivers the functionality). It also sports a very functional and useful conferencing feature that lets a user seamlessly join a conference call, if prompted to do so.

Extending the functionality of the PBX to remote devices also means all the features are extended as well. In addition to being able to place outbound calls using 4 digit extensions, users also have access to speed dial numbers and external numbers which are available based on user privilege. Features such as call park, call transfer, call hold and caller ID can be used – basically, anything the PBX delivers can be used from outside the organization’s network. The system also offers a Seamless Call Mobility/Call Reconnect feature which “seamlessly” moves calls which are in progress between different devices and networks without needing to disconnect and re-establish the call. This means conversations initiated from desk phones can be transitioned to cell phones and, similarly, those initiated on WiFi or VoIP networks can transition onto cell networks. The Call Reconnect feature re-establishes a call in the event connectivity is lost.

By extending the functionalities of the PBX, corporate policies are extended as well. With the Ascendent system, security measures can be turned on and off in order to control user access/privileges; calls can be limited to preserve network bandwidth; and calls can be forced across lower-cost routes. Plus, as Dodson pointed out, because all calls are routed through the PBX, a call record is left behind for all calls (inside and out) which can be used for easier and more comprehensive call data tracking and auditing – and is particularly useful for billing.

Furthermore, because all lines a linked to a single number which resides on the company PBX, that number then ends up becoming a corporate asset.

“In other words if one of your reps leaves and goes to a competitor, the cell phone calls don’t go with them – they keep calling the desk phone in the enterprise,” Dodson explained.

In addition, Ascendent offers a business continuity solution involving a “second system at back up site.” With this redundant system, Ascendent can send call traffic to the back up site automatically – something which Dodson said might come in handy one day in case “someone using a back hoe out in front of your building cuts your fiber optic line.”

“Nobody thinks about voice continuity the same way they do for data,” he said.

As Dodson explained, Ascendent started out in the cell phone rental business. One day a high profile client asked if the cell rental could be extended to his hotel room – which led to the idea of extending the service to the hotel industry and letting the hotels themselves route the calls through their phone systems (thus they could charge for the calls). Dodson said one of the company’s engineers wrote some software which was tested on a high-end hotel’s IP PBX … “and it worked, it didn’t blow up their PBX.” From there the company hired some developers, who further developed the solution during 2001-2003. During these “slow years,” the team at Ascendent "cooked the solution slowly," added to it, and trialled it frequently. They presented it to Sprint/Nextel, where it was warmly received. From there, Nextel’s Custom Network Solutions division helped Ascendent distribute the solution to Fortune 500 customers. Of course, the big news came earlier this year when Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry device and long-standing partner with Ascendent, announced it was acquiring Ascendent Systems and is now developing a special BlackBerry client of the software. The rest is pretty much history. The solution is now being used by large enterprises all over the globe and its popularity is increasing.

“We’ve really put together a nice portfolio of Fortune 500 customers – most of which are names you know,” Dodson said, adding, however, that Ascendent doesn’t name most of its customers due to contractual obligations.

To learn more about Ascendent Systems (News - Alert) and the Ascendent Voice Mobility Suite, visit www.ascendentsystems.com.

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Patrick Barnard is Associate Editor for TMCnet and a columnist covering the telecom industry. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page.