I had breakfast this morning with a long time friend & now the (young) CIO of the Chinese branch of a consumer electronics company. Hadn’t seen each other for quite a while, but the conversation had to switch in some ways to information technology.

My friend has recently been in the process of implementing both wireless & VoIP, the former for ease-of-use reasons, the latter to kill costs.

He asked me to try to challenge him over the Wi-Fi choice. Security? True, encryption standards such as WPA and, more recently, WPA 2 have helped WLAN democratize quite a lot. Speed? 54 theoretical Mbits/sec using routers to keep data and voice traffic separate should do in the mid-run.

Same went for VoIP. Cost of infrastructure? Apparently, it costs twice as much to use traditional devices & PBX telephone exchange than Cisco wireless equipment (Nokia smart phones included). Cost of calls? Expected savings are of 90% on international calls and an overall average of 20%-30%.

I have to say I was quite convinced by all these arguments (although, a technophile, it shouldn’t have been so hard). If I may add further: most companies already use VoIP networks without even knowing it (telco operators do). And when it comes to wireless security, this is where I’m more skeptical: someone who really wants to listen will listen to the signal.

Still, it takes guts to go for this big, dual project. Hope more companies start at least to think of switching to the less-rigid wireless world, and to cheaper VoIP telecommunications.

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