Upwardly mobile

By Lisa Simmons

Implementing the right mobile solution across a government department or agency can help save dollars and allow staff to access not just voice and email, but also office documents, video and printing capabilities wherever they are.
The key is to select the right hardware and the right calling plan, and keeping track of both with mobile management tools.

The hardware space is where the most exciting technological leaps are occurring. Here, the biggest buzzword has been ‘convergence’. Convergence is where everything from voice, data, SMS, email and video can be integrated into single devices.

Mobile convergence is the reason multiple devices are becoming increasingly unnecessary for government organisations, as new devices that offer full access to documents and office applications enter the market.

According to Samsung Mobile’s marketing manager Jenny Goodridge, users of converged devices now have the opportunity to turn up to meetings with nothing but their mobile phones because these devices have become a kind of combined mobile, personal digital assistant (PDA), laptop and USB card.

Other key developments within the mobile sector include the introduction of a third generation network (3G), expanded memory storage and higher quality video and image capabilities.

The introduction of 3G into the Australian mobile telecommunications market allows for the high-speed transmission of data and makes video calling and video messaging possible. 3G also allows for mobile broadband internet access for wireless email and wireless office access. In many cases, telecommunication providers are offering capped call costs for 3G plans, meaning no unexpected bills.

Another criteria organisations should look at is the internal memory storage size on mobile phones. In addition to internal memory capabilities, manufacturers offer external (removable) memory storage, in order to increase the amount of data stored on the mobile. Combine this with offering USB port on a mobile and it means a worker can easily exchange information and data from their phone to their computer.

Managing mobile affairs
It’s all very well handing out new handsets to staff, but managing call costs and increasing visibility is a challenge for many cost-conscious government departments.

For the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA), a Commonwealth Government department with 470 mobile phone users spread across Australia, these difficulties presented a significant challenge. Regional branches managed their own mobile telephony, which meant there was no consistency across the department on key factors such as plans, rates and coverage options.

“We needed increased visibility into our mobile telephony fleet – knowledge about which employees were using phones, how much they were spending and how well they adhered to our usage policies,” says Ian Fletcher, director, voice services, DVA.

July 2005 saw the final roll out of a Macquarie Telecom mobile telephony solution, incorporating GSM and CDMA handsets and the FleetView mobile management tool.

FleetView management tool allows the department to set alerts on phone usage; suspend lost phones; give regional branches visibility into their own groups while a central administrator can monitor the entire fleet; set work hours for phone usage on a branch-by -branch basis; restrict use of phones for private calls by making it easier for users to access a private, pre-paid account; and give employees access to their bills online.

“The FleetView product gives real time feeds from the carriers, giving managers an internet-based view of the calls that are being made,” says Denis Rowe, marketing director at Macquarie Telecom.

“This allows managers to control and override calling habits by department or individual.”

The DVA had three primary goals in overhauling its mobile telephony fleet: to determine whether market prices had reduced and take advantage of any cost reductions; to gain a real-time insight into mobile phone assets and usage patterns, and to measure compliance with the existing departmental usage policies and redefine these to better align with goals and workflow processes.

 “FleetView has automated our reporting, billing and mobile phone inventory management,” Mr Fletcher says.

“This gives us the flexibility to make ‘real time’ changes to user profiles to accommodate business travel requirements, annual leave and a range of other changes of circumstances.”

The DVA has seen a 55 per cent reduction in call carriage costs. Administration costs have also been significantly reduced. Processing and reporting on monthly usage, which previously took between three and four days, now take three hours due to online billing provided by FleetView.