Mobility, flexibility
seen as advantages
At Rhode Island Hospital, a Wi-Fi system allows doctors and nurses to access patient data and lab and test results, order procedures and consult expert sources at bedside.
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It connects the Vocera units that nurses wear around their necks, allowing them to talk to one another hands-free even when they are giving someone an injection.
It provides Internet access for patients and their families while they’re at the hospital. And it tracks the movements of critical pieces of equipment by locating their electronic tags.
There’s no question: The Lifespan health care network is well ahead of most Rhode Island businesses in the use of Wi-Fi technology. David S. Hemendinger, chief technology officer, calls it “a vital part” of the hospitals’ operations.
Lifespan, which also uses Nextel wireless phones, BlackBerry units, virtual private networks and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology – and plans to expand VoIP use beyond the hospital campuses – offers a glimpse of where many businesses are headed.
Tom Towhill, co-owner of Computer Telephone Inc., in Warwick, said in just a couple of years VoIP and Wi-Fi systems have gone from something tech-savvy customers would mention in passing, as in, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have…,” to a standard offering.
“In the last year, six out of 10 systems that we put in had some form of wireless attached to it,” Towhill said. VoIP is even more popular, especially in the form of hybrid systems with enhanced features and the capability to serve off-site users, while remaining compatible with old phones.
“It’s part of every sales presentation,” Towhill said, adding that clients buy the new technologies because they offer “mobility, flexibility, full features and some means to always be connected when you’re away from your desk.”
Full-fledged VoIP systems aren’t that common yet in Rhode Island because few carriers provide IP telephony, especially for small and mid-sized customers. That, too, is about to change, Towhill said. Cox and Verizon haven’t launched such services yet, but other carriers are about to jump into the market, he said. His own company plans to start selling IP phone service with a national partner within months.
“We may think of Rhode Island as a bit of a backwater,” he said. “But carriers look at Providence as the land of opportunity.”
So what are all these services?
VoIP, which consumer-oriented Vonage has been introducing to the masses, refers to the basic technology of transmitting voice, as data packets, over data lines, instead of over a dedicated telephone connection. It can be done in-house over a local network, and then connect to the regular phone network, or vice versa – regular in-house phones can connect to a device that connects to a VoIP provider.
Wi-Fi systems – which can involve computers, telephones or a combination of both as well as other devices – connect devices to the network through their wireless access cards that get their signals from antennae (wireless access points) placed throughout a building. Wi-Fi-enabled devices can also connect remotely by accessing “hot spots” such as those provided at Starbucks cafés.
For VoIP in particular, 2005 was “a real maturation year,” said Jeff Swider, president of Vision Telecom Inc., a Providence consulting firm that helps businesses develop integrated voice and data networks. At the same time, Wi-Fi has hit its stride.
Increasingly, businesses are adopting VoIP and Wi-Fi together. Part of the appeal is simplification: VoIP allows a company to set up and maintain a single, integrated network for voice and data communications, avoiding duplication, Swider said. Wi-Fi takes it one step further by removing the need for wiring – a big plus when setting up a new office.
Both technologies cost more upfront – Towhill estimated that VoIP costs 20 to 25 percent more than a traditional phone system.
For a company with a solid existing network, Swider said, that extra cost makes upgrading not yet worthwhile, unless they can benefit from the enhanced features. But for a new office, or a company replacing its entire system, the long-term savings from reduced phone service costs and from not having to maintain two separate networks will more than offset the initial investment.
Towhill said many of his clients buy VoIP systems because they can connect offices in different parts of the country seamlessly and at a low cost. Companies with employees who travel a lot also like VoIP, he noted, because they can connect to the network anywhere there’s an Internet connection, whether through a land line or Wi-Fi.
Already, Swider carries around a phone that he can hook up to his laptop and have all the functions he’d get at his desk. The next generation of phones is taking this further – some manufacturers are selling hybrids that use VoIP when there’s a Wi-Fi connection, and switch to wireless (as in cell phones) networks when they’re not near a hot spot.
Consulting firm Infonetics Research recently projected that VoIP service revenue in North America will grow 18-fold between 2004 and 2009, from $1.24 billion to $23.4 billion per year, with 6 million new subscribers each year, to more than 24 million by 2008.
Similarly, in Wi-Fi, industry research firm visiongain projected last month that worldwide enterprise spending will rise from $50 billion in 2005, to more than $130 billion in 2008.
Businesses, consultants and vendors in the Ocean State all agree that Rhode Island’s market is fully onboard this high-tech wave. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t obstacles.
At Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island, Everett J. Sutherland, vice president of information technology, said the company’s entire campus is already Wi-Fi-enabled, and he’s launched a pilot with BlackBerry service to further enhance key staffers’ accessibility.
But VoIP, Blue Cross just can’t afford it, Sutherland said. “We’d have to allocate a lot of resources, so I can’t make it a priority right now,” he said.
At the Washington Trust Company in Westerly, Barbara Perino, senior vice president of operations and technology, said the bank is currently shopping for an IP telephony vendor, and it plans to adopt the technology soon. Her counterpart at Bank Rhode Island, however, Kenneth L. Senus, senior vice president for information technology and operations, said while he wants to adopt VoIP himself, long-term contracts have precluded him from doing so.
As for Wi-Fi – he’s eager to adopt it, Senus said, but he’s shopping carefully to ensure that when wireless systems are introduced, they won’t make the bank’s network vulnerable.
“Security, security, security – that’s at the top of our list at all times,” Senus said. “With Wi-Fi, we really have to make sure that we’re getting the right solutions. This is the financial services industry. We cannot take the risk of a compromise of customers’ information.”
