With the trends in business towards more mobility, the “single number, single phone” concept has been introduced as an alternative for enterprises to enable all staff who are out of the office to be reached at all times through a single number.

Mobile users have access to all the functions of the phone on their desk back at the office, through an easy-to-use on-screen interface. It integrates phones into an enterprise’s business operations by merging mobile and fixed-line networks, enabling users to manage their voice communications with clients and colleagues.

“The technology targets road warriors. One number is assigned for each employee. This not only enables businesses to increase productivity but also makes it possible to control the cost,” said Sutas Kongdumrongkiat, country director for Thailand and Indochina of Avaya Asia Pacific Inc.

Turning the concept into practice, Avaya has joined with mobile-phone operator Advanced Info Service Plc (AIS) and Nokia (Thailand) to offer enterprises the opportunity to make their operations completely and effectively mobile.

Avaya provides what it calls enterprise fixed-mobile convergence applications, while AIS offers facilities to support the “fixed-mobile convergence” calls.

As a major cell-phone manufacturer, Nokia offers a wide range of mobile products to allow users to pick up calls made on fixed lines to their office at all times.

An additional server is needed at the central office to connect an enterprise’s IP-based PBX with the AIS mobile network. It transfers the calls made over the fixed network to mobile devices.

Each mobile worker is assigned a single number that will work on both fixed and mobile phones. This means they can pick up calls from a fixed-line phone when in the office and also get calls when outside.

Sutas said the service could benefit both businesses and their clients. The enterprises can control and potentially trim the cost of calls made by their employees, and customers who call the staff on the fixed number will pay just fixed-line rates, even when the call has been transferred to the employees’ mobile.

He said the Nokia phone would work as an office phone that can make, receive or transfer calls through the communications manager at the central office. All mobile phones are equipped with Avaya software that is compatible with the Nokia S60 platform and the Symbian operating system.

Apart from receiving calls from fixed lines on cell phones, mobile users can also have conference calls with up to six colleagues or clients by simply dialling their numbers one by one. If they are in the office and pick up calls from a fixed phone on their desk, they can drop the fixed line and transfer the call to a mobile immediately.

Somchai Lertsuthiwong, vice president of AIS’s wireless-service section, says that businesses using the service will be charged according to packages, which will make it easier for them to control calls made by their employees. The service is in line with the company’s vision to offer “innovative industry convergence services” to subscribers.

Bob McDougall, managing director of Nokia (Thailand)’s customer and market operations section, says that at this stage the company has about nine mobile-phone models that work with Symbian S60.

The majority of them are N-series – the series that supports the fixed-mobile capability.

The service in the first phase will mainly concentrate on binding the two different fixed-line and mobile GSM networks into one, transferring calls made over fixed lines to mobile networks.

Later they will introduce Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) to companies’ mobile communications. Sutas said that in this later phase the company will introduce a new Wi-Fi system that supports both voice and data, to enable calls to transfer and continue smoothly when users are roaming from area to area – either within their office or within the building. “When switched to Wi-Fi, both incoming and outgoing calls will be charged at fixed-line rates since they don’t run on the GSM network,” he said.

Users wanting the Wi-Fi feature need appropriate mobile phones. “Nokia’s E Series business cell phones, with capabilities that include 802.11g and Wi-Fi access, allowing workers to make and receive voice-over-Wi-Fi calls on corporate campuses, integrate perfectly with corporate IP private branch exchanges,” Sutas said.

suchalee@nationgroup.com

Suchalee Pongprasert

The Nation