XplanaZine

Under the category of “why not?” we are watching the growth of VoWLAN with more than a modicum of interest. Instat released a report this week stating that the market is indeed one with a significantly growing amount of interest and potential. This will result in a growth in end-user revenue from approximately 16.5 million in 2002 to 507 million in 2007.

VoWLAN? Why are people excited about conducting telephony over 802.11 protocols (wireless)? Well, for mobile workers in networked buildings, this is potentially a great solution for enhanced productivity. Softphones from TeleSym and Vedic enable pocket PCs on a Wi-Fi network to function as phones. Vocera, with its badge device, has created a relatively inexpensive way of allowing for hands-free and quick communication between mobile workers, such as nurses.

VoWLAN technology will allow mobile phones to switch seamlessly between cellular and 802.11, even in the middle of a call. Motorola, Proxim and Avaya announced a partnership, in January 2003, to develop the handsets and necessary infrastructure required to make this vision a reality. The biggest projected markets for VoWLAN are healthcare, education and retail, the same markets that have rolled out aggressive WLAN network solutions over the past two years.

What might this look like for education? Combined with Pocket PC or other PDA technology, students and teachers could remain connected via voice and data seamlessly as they moved about traditional campuses. In the teaching hospitals, the potential uses are the biggest. While on rounds, teachers and students can make notes on handhelds either via text entry or with voice, calling in their notes to a voice blog, and archiving them for future use or for sharing with others.

VoWLAN is an interesting integration because it takes a different approach at creating integrate communication devices. Instead of creating new hardware devices, VoWLAN puts the burden on the network and lets software do the work for already-existing handsets. This is particularly attractive for multi-campus institutions running wireless networks with executives that are constantly mobile. VoWLAN offers them a different kind of connectivity — one office phone number, data and voice, all on one device.

While VoWLAN certainly will not corner the mobile phone market, it does offer rich alternatives for connected communications in specific businesses and organizations.