The more mobile the application, the more useful wireless is. In some cases conferencing dovetails into wireless intercom and into telephone and video link-ups, and this is where wireless solutions can provide a different dimension to the boardroom. One market leader is Polycom, a global solutions company in telepresence and video conferencing.
Glynn Jones is responsible for Polycom's voice products in the EMEA marketing region, from traditional conference phones to VoIP and wireless products. The SoundStation range of conference phones includes a wireless version ideally suited to architecturally sensitive environments, based on DECT: Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications, the ETSI standard for digital mobile phones.
"It delivers a degree of portability," Jones explains, "for organisations that perhaps want one conference phone shared between several different rooms. It's standalone in the sense that you can plug the base station into any telecoms socket, but being DECT-compatible it is Generic Access Profile (GAP)-compliant. Any private branch exchange (PBX) within your facility with GAP capability to support DECT will directly support that conference phone as well."
The GAP standard defines how any conforming DECT Fixed Part, namely the base station, interoperates with any conforming DECT Portable Part, namely the handset, to provide basic telephony when attached to a 3.1kHz network. The aim is to enable both wireless connection and call control. A private branch exchange (PBX) caters for a specific business or office, as opposed to one that a telephone company operates for the general public or general commerce.
This is a related story to the feature 'Conference audio - down to the wire'
