Building upon the explosive growth and widespread adoption VoIP, and Wi-Fi networks, Cisco's voice-ready wireless capabilities of Cisco Compatible Extensions create the foundation for enterprise organisations that want to capitalise on these converging technologies and make voice over Wi-Fi a business reality.
"The allure of streamlined voice-intensive business processes in the enterprise shifts the case for IP voice from 'It costs less' to 'It's better'," said Abner Germanow, research director at IDC. "Meanwhile, new wireless investments are delivering connectivity to mobile workers. The end result will be a new class of mobility applications as voice and wireless collide."
Voice-ready wireless is an end-to-end solutions approach that addresses the convergence of VoIP and wireless networks and allows enterprises to flexibly extend the mobility benefits of wireless networks to their voice communications. Critical to this solution are client devices with fully integrated advanced wireless LAN capabilities to ensure optimal performance. To optimise clients and wireless network components, Cisco is working with Intel, Nokia, RIM and other industry innovators, so that enterprises can simply deploy highly secure clients that are interoperable and capable of supporting advanced features required for voice.
The foundation of a voice-ready wireless network begins with a Cisco Unified Wireless Network. Designed to complement a variety of voice clients, the Cisco Unified Wireless Network is optimised for voice. It builds upon a highly-scalable, low total cost of ownership architecture, which is designed to support pervasive deployments that are typical of customers with mobile voice applications. Additionally, innovative features in the solution, such as end-to-end quality of service, and fast secure roaming backed by a portfolio of access points with enhanced radios, make the Cisco Unified Wireless Network "voice-ready".
The Cisco Compatible Extensions program aims to ensure widespread availability of client devices that are interoperable with a Cisco WLAN infrastructure and to take advantage of Cisco innovations for enhanced security, mobility, quality of service and network management.
The holistic approach to voice-ready wireless starts at the client-to-network communications layer. Here, Cisco presents new updates to its Cisco Compatible Extensions program to support voice applications. Cisco Compatible Extensions integration with client collaborators, such as Intel and Nokia, helps to ensure greater voice-over-Wi-Fi caller security, improved roaming across campus environments, and enhanced management features to detect and mitigate radio frequency interference. As well, the latest Cisco Compatible Extensions developments include improvements to extend client battery life, call prioritisation for optimal voice quality of service, and analysis of key voice attributes such as jitter, delay and loss to ensure a high quality user experience.
"Cisco Compatible Extensions greatly facilitates partnered voice offerings in a Cisco Unified Wireless Network, providing a validated and optimized network infrastructure. That is the crux to voice-ready wireless networks," said Brett Galloway, vice president and general manager, Cisco Wireless Networking Business Unit. "Working with Intel, Nokia, RIM and others, we are unifying a triad: bringing together wired and wireless networks, voice and data offerings, and industry support for Cisco and partner offerings."