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Bluetooth goes into enterprise phone systems

One thing everybody knows about Bluetooth is that you can't "roam" around with it. Once you're logged on to a device, you're tied to it. Except, it's no longer true. As demonstrated at the recent Bluetooth Congress ...

The demonstration was simple: people using cordless phones, wandering around a campus, moving from one access point to another. The demonstration was set up to show the potential of Bluetooth in office telephony applications. In the demonstration, users with a Bluetooth enabled Alcatel One TouchTM GSM phone, were able to receive and initiate Bluetooth voice calls to and from any phone devices - that is, IP phone, DECT phone or cellular phone - while moving freely throughout the area.

The Commil Cellarion system was the part which ensures seamless handover between Bluetooth access points, and the Alcatel OmniPCX based voice network.

The complete solution is not much use in everyday work today - it's not expected to be available for another 12 months. But that's not a problem, because there are, today, rather few mobile phones with CTP - the cordless telephony profile - which enables a bluetooth device to function as a phone.

Where it becomes interesting, is when most people actually have cellphones with CTP; probably a year to two years from now. At that point, the attraction of being able to make - and receive - virtually free calls on the standard cellphone will become apparent to office planners.

With a little luck, it will also become apparent to the operators of mobile phone networks. At first sight, they will probably expect to lose revenue. In fact, their networks are currently so over-loaded, and their voice-call fees still dropping so fast, that they will probably be able to offload quite a lot of their cheaper-rate calls to ad-hoc networks of Bluetooth and WiFi extensions to their GSM nets, freeing the outdoor spectrum for higher-value services like truly rapid data.

Naturally, Commil was pretty excited about the success of the demonstration. "Commil is the first and only company to date which was able to demonstrate Bluetooth voice handover," said Lior Rapaport, who is VP of business development. They got a glowing endorsement from Alcatel, where Dany Jenneve, VP of product mamangement described Cellarion as "advancing Bluetooth wireless technology, from cable replacement to a global enterprise mobility communication system."

The Cellarion system, a carrier-grade communication infrastructure, uses access points and gateways, to bring true wireless networking connectivity and mobility to off-the-shelf mobile devices equipped with the standard Bluetooth chip. It creates a cellular-like Bluetooth network that supports roaming and seamless session handover for office buildings, shopping malls and airport terminals.

"Our patent-pending technology enables truly mobile, uninterrupted communication to the PBX and LAN of the enterprise†said Rapaport. "The demonstration clearly shows the advantages of Bluetooth enabled handsets to corporations and solution providers."