This blog we travel to the Mobility Solutions “planet” within the galaxy of Next Dimension Working™ solutions.

I often discuss my work life as being an enterprise mobility case study, or basket case, depending on which way you look at it (I think my wife definitely considers it the latter). I work at home but also travel extensively with an average of only one day spent at my Sydney desk a month. In any given day, I could log into our corporate Telstra network using up to four different access mechanisms!!!

This blog, I have the pleasure of introducing Simon Renouf, our Product Manager for Telstra Remote Working Solutions. Simon is one of our most passionate people within the company having among things, written a Masters thesis on Enterprise Mobility. A pretty good guy to discuss the subject matter and how Telstra within our Next Dimension Working™ solution set is bringing together the benefits of device and access flexibility within a simplified solution framework that addresses a range of significant challenges, including cost containment and security.

Over to you Simon:

Enterprise Mobility (EM) is a growing trend in Australian enterprise, with the continuing emergence of broadband and wireless networking technologies and the increasing use of mobile devices such as laptops and PDAs opening opportunities for many categories of work to be conducted without the traditional limitations of time and space.

Today, business is frequently being conducted from outside the bounds of the traditional workplace. This phenomenon is not confined to traditional business travelers, but extends to new classes of users who are able to take advantage of wireless and mobile technologies to perform their work with greater flexibility. For ever increasing classes of worker, the dream of being able to operate ‘anywhere, anytime’ has never been more tangible.

Clearly, companies that make the most of these exciting new mobile access options will increase their workforce productivity, improve their customer service and gain a competitive advantage. Other emerging benefits include the potential to reduce your office space requirements (real estate costs!) and your associated carbon-footprint (Turlough Guerin addresses the ‘green’ benefits of EM in his Green Files blog - ‘A Matter of Trust’).

Just as clearly, the huge range of technological options available creates many challenges for business and IT managers. How do you support end users on diverse devices and networks? What devices and networks will you support? Do you leave users out in the cold when they are using a device or network that you don’t support? How do you keep a lid on your budget? Who pays for remote access costs? What about Security? How do you protect your intellectual property and trade secrets?

These are not new questions… however answers get more complicated as the technology options multiply, and as users become more mobile and out of reach!

To stay productive and to maintain their work-life balance, users need a simple, consistent way to stay in touch with information and resources while in motion. At the same time, IT managers need to maintain some semblance of security and control over sensitive business information - as well as the costs of mobile connectivity!

Telstra Enterprise & Government customers with a Next IP™ network have access to a number of services which enable remote access for their staff. However, only Telstra Remote Working Solutions brings together a combination of networks and management tools to enable Next Dimension Working™. This fully integrated solution creates an opportunity for Australian businesses to lead the world in enabling enterprise mobility.

The service unifies mobility management over any Internet connection in order to optimise mobile access, centrally manage devices and connections, and control your expenses:

• ‘Managed Access’ service offers a fully managed mobile IP VPN that connects to your world-leading Telstra Next IP™ network, the largest fully integrated national IP network in the world. Imagine the Possibilities™.
• Award-winning Mobility Manager gives users a single sign-on for simple, secure broadband access over all Internet connections and access technologies.
• The world’s largest virtual network of mobile and remote access types. Domestically, the TRWS service spans Telstra’s Next G™, Wi-Fi, ADSL and PSTN networks. Internationally, the TRWS solution leverages iPass’ global virtual network, which includes more than 100,000 Wi-Fi hotspots, hotel Ethernet, Next G™ mobile broadband and dial-up access points in more than 160 countries.
• Telstra’s Next G™ mobile broadband network covers 99 percent of the Australian population and more than 2 million square kilometres. This coverage is 100 times larger than any other 3G mobile broadband network in Australia. The Next G™ network also gives you Australia’s fastest mobile broadband speeds, with peak downlink of 7.2 Mbps and uplink of 1.9 Mbps. And thanks to the Next G™ network operating in the 850 MHz spectrum, its signals penetrate deep into large buildings.
• Web-based Service Manager unifies connection management, mobile device control, help desk tools and billing information. As a result, you can take a more integrated and holistic approach to mobility management.
• Predictable costs are ensured through active-user flat-rate pricing. Roll out TRWS to all of your users, even those with occasional needs, and rest assured your budget won’t be exceeded by heavy users or wasted on unused subscriptions.
• On-campus Wi-Fi integrates your on-campus WLAN with your TRWS solution to ensure secure, effortless connections wherever your users connect on a regular basis.
• Unified billing delivers a single detailed invoice for all services, including global roaming access.
• iOQ online reporting provides real-time deployment, usage and quality reporting based on the patented Service Quality Management system.
• Encrypted Login service protects user credentials from the client device all the way to the enterprise over broadband and wireless links, which are often based on shared-media technologies, making it possible for hackers to sniff passwords when users authenticate.

Thanks Simon, effortless / seamless connection with cost containment / control accompanied by device / network security. Nice.

I am a huge fan of the TRWS capability as it helps our customers unlock the enormous productivity benefits that mobility can provide, whilst addressing the “hygiene” factors that I know I did not give a lot of consideration to when I got my first GPRS modem.

I would obviously like to thank Simon for his contribution to the “What the IP?” blog and look forward to circling another NDW planet in my next blog.