Johannesburg telecommunications company, Tellumat, together with long-standing Danish partner and global supplier of wireless communication solutions, Kirk Telecom, is upping its efforts to supply Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT) solutions into South Africa and the rest of Africa.

DECT is a digital wireless technology which originated in Europe, and, says Kirk Telecom export manager, Vagn Jeppesen, is the younger brother of GSM. "It was designed to easily interoperate with many other types of network, including traditional telephone networks (PSTN), ISDN and mobile GSM as well," he adds.

Kirk Telecom believes that the latest technology does not always automatically supersede older technologies, and, says Jeppesen, this is why DECT still has a huge role to play in servicing customer needs over those of the latest Voice over Wireless LAN (VoWLAN) technology. "VoWLAN is not there yet, and there is a lot that still needs to be sorted out before it is ready to be optimally used. There are, for instance, the two major issues of the quality of voice and security standards (802.11)."

Mature technology

He notes that DECT is an existing mature technology, that has gone through a complete standardization process, addressing issues such as interoperability and security. "The 802.11 standard is still evolving, and there are currently 13 different 802.11 standards in use or being ratified," Jeppesen adds.

DECT, according to Tellumat"s telecoms business manager, Steve Koekemoer, is a solution geared directly at organizations which need voice communications on the shop floor, such as in the manufacturing environment and retail industry, where employees are office-bound, but not at a desk all the time.

Jacob Lauritsen, market manager at Kirk, says: "WiFi and VoWLAN technologies are geared towards large data transfers, whereas DECT is focused mainly on voice with some data transfer capabilities. We are directing our attention at companies with voice telephony needs."

Both companies are currently on an aggressive drive on the continent to sell the benefits of DECT to organizations, believing that the benefits outweigh those of current WiFi and VoWLAN solutions. Tellumat is Kirk Telecom"s local master distributor.

Jeppesen says the implementation costs are lower, and that the solutions are easier to upgrade, with only a few circuits that need to be changed, and which are easy to integrate with existing IP networks. He notes that DECT also reaches a wider reception area within buildings, with less base stations needed than for WiFi. The voice quality, he says, is also far greater than WiFi, and the cordless phones are robust with longer battery life than the current VoWLAN handsets.

According to Jeppesen, Kirk is not dismissing WiFi at all. "We are currently working on our own WiFi solutions, but will only launch when we believe the technology has matured enough," he concludes.