Japanese company gets an all-wireless office

31.05.2006
The completely wireless office has remained the Holy Grail of wireless aficionados for years, but when will it truly happen? When will all the workers in a company be able to cut the wires and operate with voice, data and video running over Wi-Fi to the cellular network, or an assortment of other networks?

Well, it just so happens that attaining the wireless office is more than a parlor game for theoreticians and, in fact, is beginning to take shape.

The largest announced wireless office deployment so far is at Osaka Gas Co. in Japan, according to Ken Dulaney, a Gartner Inc. analyst who studies such technologies.

About 6,000 dual-mode (Wi-Fi and cellular) phones were deployed from May 2005 to March 2006 at Osaka Gas' offices throughout Japan for the company's 6,000 full-time workers, said Koji Matsumoto, manager for the networking technology team, in an e-mail interview conducted with the assistance of an interpreter.

Even so, the deployment is not without compromises with the wired world, he said. Osaka still has an additional 6,000 wired phones, including 4,000 that are IP-based and used for 3,000 temporary workers who don't need the wireless mobility. Another 2,000 wired analog phones are being kept for emergencies such as loss of power in an earthquake, Matsumoto said.

He said that the total investment in the project was about $10 million, an amount that will be returned in two years because annual costs have dropped by $5 million as a result of reduced costs for maintenance, operations and telephone charges.