Voice over Wireless LAN in the enterprise

Enterprises are taking advantage of VoWLAN applications to provide mobility to workers and reduce costs through a common network infrastructure for voice and data. In many cases, enterprises implementing VoWLAN are doing so as an extension to wired VoIP systems. A company, for example, can equip the majority of the employees with a wired VoIP desk phone, and VoWLAN handsets are given to the employees needing mobility. Certainly the benefit of going wireless is that users can carry their phone with them throughout the facility, which enables them to respond faster to customer needs and functions within the company. The use of VoWLAN phones also eliminates the costs associated with rewiring telephone lines when employees change offices.

Enterprise executives making the decision to spend money on the necessary hardware and services need solid numbers before committing funds. An issue with deploying VoIP, and especially VoWLAN, in enterprises, however, is accurately predicting ROI. Assessing the returns a company will achieve by enabling faster response to customer needs, for example, is difficult. A company must be capable of achieving significant productivity benefits before moving forward with a VoWLAN deployment.

Executive management team at corporate headquarters benefits from VoWLAN solution

A particular enterprise, as with most other companies, has an executive management team located in a centralized location of the company's headquarters facility. All of these executives are infrequently in their offices — they manage by walking around and keeping tabs on their various departments. For example, the IT manager is generally visiting with technicians distributed in various parts of the facility, making sure that projects, such as PC hardware upgrades, are going smoothly. The problem is that when issues arise, the technicians have no way of contacting the IT manager immediately. The technicians use a phone in the office where they are working to call the manager's office, and 90 percent of the time must leave a voice message. In most cases, hours would pass before the manager would receive the message.

The solution to this problem was for this company to make use of an existing wireless LAN and deploy VoWLAN phones to the managers. This solution enables just about anyone to reach an appropriate manager within seconds, without experiencing the delays of voice mail.

Learn the role Voice over Wireless LAN can play in the following environments or download Chapter 1, VoWLAN applications and benefits from Deploying Voice over Wireless LANs by Jim Geier, and learn the history of Voice over Wireless LANs and how to calculate ROI.

Voice over Wireless LAN: Opportunities for VARs and systems integrators

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  How to calculate ROI

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