Greetings all,

Telecommunications Services is looking for twelve volunteers for SIP/cellular technology pilot.  If this intrigues you, keep reading...

Telcom is looking at a service offered by PosTrack, Inc.  Postrack runs a Siemens HiPath MobileConnect solution to provide fixed-mobile convenience (FMC). With this service, people with dual-mode cellular/SIP phones can roam between WiFi areas and cellular areas, and the system will automatically transfer the calls between the two networks.  Using this service, we can extend the use of cellular phones into areas with good wireless coverage but poor cellular coverage. With this system, as long as the wireless network is good, it's preferred over the cellular network. Depending on your voice/data plan with your cell provider, you may be able to save costs on the cellular side.

We are looking for twelve individuals to pilot this technology for us and to give us feedback on its reliability and usefulness. We'd like a cross-section of students, faculty, and staff (both technical and non-technical).

A description of the phones we have to test can be found here.

Requirements for participation:

o You must already have a GSM cellular service plan on your own personal cellphone.

o You must be on campus to get a new phone as early as this Thursday, but more likely Tuesday or Wednesday (June 10-11, 2008) next week.

o You must be willing to use this phone regularly for a few weeks, and provide us some written feedback on how it worked, and if this is a service that would be useful to pursue at Michigan Tech.

If you're interested in participating personally, or you know of a non-technical staff member that Telcom should consider during this pilot, please send an email to telcom-request@mtu.edu indicating your interest in the FMC pilot.  In the event we get more offers to participate than we have slots, please include a sentence or two about yourself that makes you an interesting pilot candidate.  (For example:  your home has good wireless connectively and terrible cellphone coverage, or you've done some testing of wireless and/or SIP devices already so you're familiar with the technology, or your job here on campus regularly takes you into wireless areas with poor cell coverage.)

Thanks!
Brenda Helminen, Director, Telecommunications Engineering