ASCENDENT TELECOMMUNICATIONS specializes in bridging the gap between the PBX and data networks. Most recently, they have
leveraged that expertise to help partners such as Toshiba integrate PC devices with telephone networks. In an interview with
InfoWorld Editor in Chief Michael Vizard and Test Center Director Steve Gillmor, Ascendent Telecom CEO Stephen Forte talks
about the impact telecommunications convergence will have on driving down phone costs.
InfoWorld: What is the core product your company offers?
Forte: Our product is a customer premise-based piece of equipment that is located traditionally in the PBX room of an enterprise.
The premise is to enable and essentially mobilize the corporate voice network. Our system allows you to extend the features
and functions of your voice PBX, whether it's an existing legacy PBX or a Cisco Call Manager or a 3Com box, to mobile and
wireless devices. An inbound call will come into a PBX and normally go right through to a desktop phone. What we do is cross-connect
our system via several different methods, via IP or a standard circuit link, to a PBX and create all sorts of functionality
along the way. So any inbound call goes to your desktop telephone and to your wireless telephone simultaneously.
InfoWorld: Can someone make a call out on their wireless phone through the corporate PBX?
Forte: You have the ability to place calls from your wireless or remote device through your corporate enterprise as well.
With the touch of a button on a standard cell phone, or frankly any phone, you would get dial tone from the wireless connect
system. That dial tone allows you to take advantage of the entire enterprise dialing system of your company from that remote
device. So you would touch a button on your cell phone, a moment later you'd hear dial tone, much like you would a cordless
phone in your home. And from that dial tone, you can dial anything the way you would from your desk. So if you're IBM and
you're trying to get the Hong Kong office of IBM, you might dial 80 for the Hong Kong office and then the extension of the
person you want -- you would dial with that exact same behavior from your cell phone as you would from your desk.
InfoWorld: How does this change the economics of phone systems?
Forte: Any individual from their cell phone who is calling from say San Francisco would be placing essentially a local phone
call to get dial tone at the wireless connect server, and from that point the call goes through your PBX and then through
your corporate network to get to Hong Kong. So that call to Hong Kong may cost 14 cents on this call to where it might normally
cost $3 on a direct dial call. It's significantly less expensive dialing through your corporate LAN line network.
InfoWorld: How do voicemail systems deal with that?
Forte: If you don't answer either device, the call goes automatically to your corporate voicemail.
InfoWorld: What kind of control over phone costs does this give IT people?
Forte: A lot of companies have private networks between their offices that cost them virtually nothing for point-to-point
traffic and they want to take advantage of that. They're pressuring the carriers to remove that included long-distance portion
on their minute cost. And now that all these wireless or remote phone calls are going back through the PBX, a couple of significant
events take place. First, all of these calls are now being tracked through an enterprise's call accounting system, so for
the first time you can track telephone utilization. So your existing call accounting system tracks all of the utilization
of all of your phone calls no matter what device you dialed from, in real time. More importantly, we're tracking what's called
"class of service." What we allow the company to do is extend that class of service to all remote devices. Corporations and
government entities now can fully control the entire telecom experience for all of their people, regardless of where they
make the call. A step further than that which becomes interesting is the ability to lock a handset into dialing a specific
number. That's a feature called "fixed dialing." What we do with a lot of customers is with a simple call to a wireless carrier,
you can fix dial your phone to the specific number that reaches wireless connect. No matter where you dial, you can't dial
anywhere on that cell phone that you're not allowed to on the class of service. With that, we just displaced all of the legacy
two-way radios that cost $200 to $600 apiece and given the enterprise an ability to mobilize even the lowest ranks of their
workforce in a risk-free monitored method.
InfoWorld: What happens when a cell phone drops a call?
Forte: We automatically keep the call live on our server and reconnect you back on your cell phone, so that you don't have
to redial.
InfoWorld: What does the pact with Toshiba bring to the equation?
Forte: Toshiba is going to be OEMing our software and offering it throughout their entire product line in North America.
The first iteration of our product is called Mobility Connect, and that is the brand name by Toshiba. We're adding a new component
to Toshiba notebooks and PDAs so that you can have remote call control from your notebook and your PDA. Towards the end of
the year and the beginning of next year, you'll then be able to take calls on your notebook or PDA natively. You'll be able
to have a VOIP [voice over IP] client on your PDA or your notebook, and you'll be able to have full dialing integration with
your dial plan at work, all through your PBX, right from your PDA and notebook.
InfoWorld: How will VOIP intersect with wireless networks?
Forte: A lot of the switching infrastructure folks, including Motorola, are working to integrate IP telephony switching
with their wireless devices. Over the next 18 months, IP-enabled phones that allow you to carry cell phones that allow you
to carry the VOIP, and if in fact the phone finds a better path over 802.11 as opposed to say CDMA [Code Division Multiple
Access], it will go out over VOIP. A lot of the wireless carriers are starting to incorporate technology in their core wireless
switches that will allow it to decide.
InfoWorld: In the event of a disaster, what happens?
Forte: We are having a patent accelerated through the Patent and Trademark Office for the terrorist activities. One of the
problems we find that we're addressing in this market is what's called continuity of operation. In an event such as September
11th, you certainly lost the wireless connects that were installed. You lost your PBX and you lost a piece of the publicly
switched network. We have a disaster recovery setup that not only allows you to handle evacuations through our mobility capability,
but handle outright disaster. We have a second box that can duplicate your existing system so two systems synchronize and
share a database. This is something we're doing, and we're working right now with the Senate and Secret Service.
InfoWorld: So on a simpler level, how do you get people to buy into this new technology in this economic climate?
Forte: We have an international call-back module which can save companies maximum amounts of money. We replace legacy calling
cards and we save companies a great deal of calling cards. So what it really comes down to is over and above the soft cost
efficiencies, a CFO right now is not going to cut a check to save soft costs. It's just not happening. But that on top of
the hard cost savings on long-distance plans and less infrastructure such as the carrying cost of a desktop telephone that
is $72 per employee per month will do it. A lot of these enterprises have 15 or 20 percent of their employees who don't really
need a desktop phone because they're mobile.
