Varaha sells FMC as mobile cost-cutter

Enterprises' need to cut cellular costs is helping drive fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) solutions, and FMC newcomer Varaha Systems is poised to deliver a means of easily moving cell minutes onto local WiFi networks.

After "running secretly" with its carrier and enterprise solutions, Varaha is now coming out, said Ed Cox, telecom industry veteran who is vice president of carrier sales for Varaha. This week, Varaha announced that its uMobility product family has certified interoperability with MetaSwitch, enabling the two companies to jointly offer a SIP-based FMC service that uses the MetaSwitch call agent to offer MetaSphere applications to a mobile phone.

"Our selling story has been productivity for employees and also cost savings," Cox said. "In today's environment, we're mostly talking about cost savings."

Varaha's uMobility enables enterprises to cut employees' cellular minute consumption by automatically detecting the presence of a WiFi network and routing voice calls as VoIP calls over that data connection, Cox said. Enterprise users can also associate their business caller ID and calling name with any call, including calls from a cellphone, so there is no need for multiple numbers and business calls are always answered, Cox said. The desk phone becomes mobile, and a single mailbox makes it easier to track calls.

Enterprises can cut the cost of supporting cellular service by as much as 38%, Cox said.

"Companies also can enforce business policies for outbound calling," said Prasad Govindarajan, Varaha founder and chief technology officer. All mobile voice communications route through the MetaSwitch network for consistent regulation of policies for access, long-distance and international calling. Enterprises can easily deploy the technology using off-the-shelf servers, he said.

The uMobility system will support Symbian, Windows Mobile, iPhone and even Blackberry, which is not a WiFi-enabled device but mostly a single-mode system, Cox said. "For those phones that aren't WiFi-enabled, we can only speak cellular, but they still get single-number reach and a unified mailbox."