Sawtel — a carrier based in Hartford, Conn. — has a presence in the U.S. as well as 16 emerging countries throughout the world. The carrier offers connectivity to businesses through a wireless network that integrates with a high-speed, two-way satellite backbone. The carrier has made a name for itself by providing technologically advanced communications products and services to companies around the world — especially in developing countries where the number of mobile connections is outpacing landlines due to lack of availability of infrastructure. Similarly, Sawtel’s satellite-based service is popular in rural U.S. areas where cell reception can be spotty. The company specializes in infrastructure, telecommunications and VoIP solutions for the enterprise market.

 

 

Imagine six hundred mobile phone users — all busy professionals — housed in two 24-floor, high-rise apartment towers in downtown Hartford, Conn. WiFi (News - Alert) runs throughout this urban dwelling, and all of these 600 people have been issued handsets that can roam seamlessly between WiFi and cellular networks. Their mobile devices can also send e-mail and Instant Messages (IMs), broadcast Presence, and do pretty much anything a corporate deskphone can do (call forward, hold, extension dialing, etc.).

 

This WiFi-tower story sounds a bit like life on a bleeding-edge university campus. But the scenario is in fact a high-tech lab that is being used for a state-of-the-art mobile-communications experiment.

 

This mobile-phone incubator is actually the first wave of Sawtel’s soon-to-be massive, worldwide deployment of the DiVitas Mobile Unified Communications (Mobile UC) solution. DiVitas mobilizes corporate voice and messaging (deskphone, contacts, IM and Presence) for businesses by unifying these applications onto smartphones. Once fully deployed, the solution can run on either WiFi or cellular networks or both — and Sawtel says the DiVitas solution will help its customers become more competitive.

 

For nearly two years, Sawtel customers have demanded a mobile communications solution that will increase productivity while lowering mobile costs. To address this business need, Sawtel investigated different options — and even tested one with 800 subscribers. But DiVitas proved to be the best mobility solution with the richest feature set. Integration with Unified Communications applications was especially appealing.

 

“Mobile UC is a game-changing technology for our customers,” said Eric Asare, Chief Technology Officer for Sawtel. “It offers new productivity applications and expense-reducing technology — so our customers can work more efficiently and still lower their telecommunications costs. We are extremely excited to offer this next-generation of communications technology to our customers — especially since we have been looking for the right solution for so long.”

 

“We surveyed the market for almost two years and tested several less complete products before examining DiVitas Networks (News - Alert) solution. At this point we are totally comfortable that this product set will provide the flexibility and capacity to not only meet our current requirements, but also grow to add new customers and services in the future. Our initial deployment in our 24-story high-rise building in Hartford is just the first step in what will be a global rollout of the DiVitas Networks solution,” added Asare.

 

Sawtel will leverage the tower experiment for rolling out DiVitas to U.S.-based subscribers. But the company also has high demand for the solution from its international customers located in regions — primarily developing countries — where telecommunications costs are exorbitant and the business requirement for increased productivity is high.

 

In developing countries, as much as 80 percent of voice calls are made to international clients because they ship the vast majority of their products overseas, according to Asare. This means every phone call incurs a toll charge at international rates, and additionally the call consumes expensive minutes.

 

“Cost-control is the biggest reason many of our customers want to deploy this type of solution,” says Asare. “Eighty-percent of our customers’ calls are placed on the cellular network. By installing the DiVitas Mobile UC solution we expect our customers to realize at least a sixty-five-percent savings on all calls made. We see a need for this solution in all the different markets that we sell into including government agencies, education, banking and ministries. Not only will we significantly reduce their cellular costs, we’ll also substantially increase their worker productivity.”

 

 

Sawtel has already deployed DiVitas at its company headquarters in Hartford, and currently has five employees using the solution on Nokia (News - Alert) E-series smartphones. Sawtel is running Mobile UC on a Meru wireless LAN (WLAN) and the company uses the Cisco Unified Communications 500 PBX (Call Manager).

 

DiVitas interfaces with Sawtel’s Sylantro Class 4/5 Softswitch, NextPoint (previously Nextone) Session Border Controller, Sonus Class 4 Softswitch, and Pactolus Class 5 Feature Switch for core VoIP Switching.

 

With its sights set on extending Mobile UC to its worldwide installed base, Sawtel has just expanded that deployment to include the 600 business professionals in the Hartford towers.

 

The towers lab is a deployment of individual users. However, Sawtel has made the implementation as lifelike as possible by creating fictitious companies, and splitting the users into different business groups. Operating as business users will give tower-users the ability to try extension-dialing and other business features in the capacity of a “business user.” Sawtel will monitor user feedback from the tower lab experiment, which will be used to ensure the solution is working smoothly prior to the full-fledged DiVitas deployment.

 

Following the Hartford deployments, (headquarters and the towers lab) Sawtel plans to make DiVitas available to another 2,500 subscribers outside of the U.S. by September. Moreover, DiVitas Mobile UC will be extended to over 200,000 users within 12 months.

 

Sawtel’s international customer base largely includes ministries and government entities, educational institutions and banks. These organizations are primarily located in developing countries, such as Ghana and Nigeria on the west coast of Africa. These subscribers look to Sawtel and its satellite-based network to provide the telecommunications infrastructure they could not otherwise get through landline-based infrastructure — a landline telecommunications infrastructure is not pervasive in these regions.

 

Sawtel customer-sites already run WLAN gear from Meru and Cisco (News - Alert) for their VoWiFi networks, so they will be able to leverage this existing WLAN equipment as the infrastructure for the DiVitas solution.

 

Sawtel is integrating the DiVitas Mobile UC with its existing implementation of the Microsoft Office Communication Server (OCS) platform for Unified Communications (UC).

 

Integrating with Microsoft is allowing Sawtel to offer a single system for Instant Messaging (IM), Presence, contacts, e-mail and calendaring, and these functions will be integrated into a single mobile device that also provides voice, voicemail and PBX (News - Alert) functions. Users will be reachable by a single phone number (the deskphone) no matter where they are located, and they can roam seamlessly between WiFi and cellular networks.

 

 

Sawtel is already seeing immediate benefits with the headquarters and tower deployments of DiVitas Mobile UC. Also, Asare already anticipates concrete gains to be enjoyed by Sawtel customers once the full-scale deployment is complete, especially in the area of cost-control for companies located in developing countries.

 

On cost alone, Asare estimates his customers will shave about 65 percent off their current communications bills. Without DiVitas, a phone call can cost them as much as 28 cents per minute. With DiVitas that cost will drop as low as 3 cents per minute.

 

Also, with DiVitas, mobile workers can make or receive calls from anywhere on the corporate campus and the call is placed over free WiFi. They can also roam to cellular when off campus with the assurance they are still reachable by a single phone number. Additionally they can communicate via IM or email, and they can broadcast their Presence, indicating which is the best way to reach them (voice, voice & text, text-only, or unavailable). Presence helps eliminate the wasted time spent on telephone tag.

 

Having the freedom to use a mobile phone just as you would a desktop phone translates directly to increased productivity.

 

Also, Asare notes that emerging markets — which represent much of Sawtel’s installed base — tend to seek less expensive ways of communicating, and DiVitas fits in well with that practice. For example, mobile users in emerging markets rely heavily on text messaging, which costs less than using cell minutes when making quick communication such as “meet me downstairs.” However, DiVitas users will save money once they begin to use the instant messaging feature to communicate, as this service is part of the DiVitas solution. There are no fees attached to IM, as with text messaging, which can cost up to ten cents per message.

 

Sawtel has been in search of a Mobile UC solution for nearly two years in order to enhance its state-of-the-art telecommunications services that it offers to companies worldwide. DiVitas is adding a sophisticated mobility component to its overall offering, and it will simultaneously complete Sawtel’s Unified Communications strategy due to its unique support for Microsoft OCS.

 

“Our customers are always pressing us to deliver new ways to help them improve their business operations. With the opportunity to dramatically increase productivity within their workforce and to lower telecommunications expense, DiVitas Networks gives us the tools to meet their challenges,” concluded Asare.