Earlier this month Avaya made a major announcement, naming DiVitas as its preferred dual-mode solution. This is exciting news for the Mobile Unified Communications space given Avaya’s size (number one in North America’s PBX market) – and given the fact that DiVitas is a startup company in an hot market.

And if that news wasn’t exciting enough, we already have a joint customer to talk about – a leading railroad company based in Jacksonville, Fla. – to demonstrate how the integrated Avaya-DiVitas solution can save companies $10,000+ dollars per month in cellular costs. Free WiFi phone calls go a long way toward reduced cellular costs and creating affordable telecommunications.

Freightrail-giant CSX has turned to Avaya and DiVitas to help reduce cellular calling costs and eliminate multiple handsets used by train operations personnel who roam the workplace and communicate frequently on urgent events.

For more than five years, Dori Meade, senior telecom architect for voice systems at CSX, sought a wireless dual-mode solution to reduce communications costs and eliminate the need for users to carry multiple mobile devices.  One long-standing business need has been to enable rail operations employees at the Jacksonville train dispatch center to be instantly reachable to help resolve urgent problems that might slow on-time arrival or reduce safety margins.  Routine duties in the dispatch center often cause key personnel to be away from their desks.

CSX supported these workers with both desk phone and cell phone, but cell coverage was spotty in the hardened facility.  In the late 1990’s, CSX deployed a carrier-based in-building cellular antenna system to solve the problem. Then five years ago when the in-building cellular system was no longer supported, CSX began to explore the possibility of dual-mode capabilities. At the time, a stable dual-mode solution was not yet available and CSX adopted a 900-Mhz in-building only voice solution instead. Handling multiple devices and contact numbers remained a nuisance for the users.  

From a cost-control perspective, users did not always use the lower-cost 900-Mhz handset and expensive cell minutes were still consumed in-building. Besides adding cost, the multiple systems did not provide a seamless mobile communications experience or the unified communications (UC) functionality that CSX was looking to adopt.  

Last year, a solution meeting Meade’s goals became possible.  As CSX standardized and began to deploy a popular wireless LAN offering, she also learned about the dual-mode telephony capability of DiVitas Networks’ Mobile Unified Communications (Mobile UC) solution. At the same time, upgrades to Avaya Communication Manager were underway, which will eventually support more than 5,000 Jacksonville employees.  

They linked to the DiVitas Mobile UC solution via Avaya’s SIP Enablement Services and the result is that Avaya user extensions are transparently supported on a dual-mode mobile phone.  The Mobile Unified Communications solution gives mobile users the ability to access corporate enterprise voice communications via WiFi on CSX premises with a single device via a single number.  The solution further enables WiFi access from home or potentially from any WiFi hotspot and takes advantage of seamless roaming between WiFi and cellullar to avoid call interruption.

Today users at the dispatch center connect to the system through Nokia dual-mode E-51 and E-71 handsets loaded with the DiVitas Client.  When dispatch managers are on the move, DiVitas automatically makes roaming decisions between WiFi and cellular networks to sustain the call, using the best voice quality and least-cost connection available. Meade identifies a potential rollout to hundreds of campus employees over the next two years as the Avaya Communication Manager upgrades are completed.  

Savings from reduced cellular minutes:  With dual-mode communications, cell plan minutes can be substantially reduced for on-campus mobile workers and even more so for field-workers. CSX calculates it has the potential to reduce cellular calling costs by ten to thirty percent, and foresees that a single user community within the company could alone generate savings of up to $10,000 per month.

Mobilized deskphone, Presence and Instant Messaging:  The DiVitas Mobile UC solution gives access to Avaya Communication Manager features including call transfer and conferencing, as well as access to CSX’s low-cost long distance and international calling plan.  The DiVitas solution also includes Unified Communications capabilities such as mobile Presence and mobile Instant Messaging (IM) to provide yet more options for improving reachability and productivity among mobile workers. Visual Voicemail is another feature users can take advantage of in their quest for affordable mobile telecommunications and a fast Fixed Mobile Convergence ROI.

One number for all your calls (single number reach): CSX professionals can manage their availability when away from the office and can receive their calls via their corporate number on their DiVitas dual-mode handset. Callers don’t need to know CSX workers’ cell numbers or home numbers, enhancing privacy, security and work-life balance. When calls are unanswered, the call is delivered to the corporate Avaya voicemail system, not the cell phone voicemail. This eliminates the wasteful (time and money) practice of missed calls and having to check multiple locations for business messages.

CSX is an innovator when it comes to being a green transportation company, and it makes it a priority to reduce its footprint on our planet. Now CSX is following this same green strategy with it's cost-reducing mobile-communications strategy.