Users need fewer devices, gain more convenience, IT manager says

February 19, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Doctors at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center prompted their IT staff to launch a new pilot project of dual-mode phone technology that's due to be announced Tuesday.

If the project works as expected, hospital staff will be able to keep the same caller on the line with the same handset as they walk from a car outside into an examination room, said David Sproul, manager of capital projects and emerging technologies for UCSF. The call itself is designed to move seamlessly from a cellular network to the hospital's extensive Wi-Fi network.

The three hospitals at UCSF have many dead cellular zones, because some of the buildings are 16 stories tall with steel bracing to prevent earthquake damage and lead-lined walls to contain radiation, he said.

UCSF has a large Wi-Fi network with 800 access points providing internal coverage virtually everywhere, Sproul said. "We wanted to take advantage of that."

UCSF has a four-stage deployment of technology that relies on new products from DiVitas Networks in Mountain View, Calif. The technology, which DiVitas will announce Tuesday, consists of a Mobile Convergence Appliance deployed in the data center and a Mobile Convergence Client deployed on each handset, the company said. The MCA 1000 with a 10-user MCC license starts at $5,495 and is available Tuesday.

The initial cost of the UCSF project is expected to be more than $250,000, Sproul said. Already, UCSF has finished the first stage, which was a lab test that validated the technology would work well with the center's Cisco Systems Inc. access points and its Siemen's HiPath 4000 voice switch.

UCSF entered the second stage last week, which is a small deployment with about six IT workers, that is expected to last 60 days if successful, Sproul said. The third stage, also of 60 days, involves rolling out the technology to facilities workers at multiple sites. The fourth and final phase will be to roll out the technology to physicians by the end of the year, he said.

In addition to keeping calls across the cellular-to-Wi-Fi boundary, the new system will mean staff no longer need to carry multiple devices, Sproul said. It will also save the center money. "We're not sure how much we'll save, but our goal was to provide functionality to users," he said.

DiVitas said every minute spent calling or messaging over the Wi-Fi network that replaces a cellular minute could be a fraction of the air-time cost, since cellular service is sometimes 10 times as expensive as a wired phone service. Wi-Fi is not regulated and once a network is in place, the calls over it are virtually free.

Hundreds of users at UCSF could be affected, since the hospital knows about 400 cell phones are in use with nearly 900 additional Spectralink phones working over Wi-Fi, Sproul said. If the system works well, nearly 1,100 long-range pagers could be replaced as well.

DiVitas said its gear works with PBX-based voice systems or alone and will interoperate with any Wi-Fi infrastructure. The technology also supports dual-mode phones, Wi-Fi-only phones, cellular-only smartphones and softphones running on PCs or other devices. The MCC, a software client, can be downloaded over the air to the handhelds, DiVitas said.

DiVitas said it has provided the first technology for convergence, although analysts noted that Meru Networks and Japanese carrier NTT help set up a dual-mode technology for Osaka Gas in Toyko that is being used by more than 4,000 workers.

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