SpectraLink NetLink Wireless Telephones Best Practices White Paper Wireless Telephone - Manual (Page 2)

White Paper
Page 1
1.0 Introduction
Wi-Fi telephony is the convergence of wireless voice and data
applications using a common Wi-Fi wireless LAN. Wi-Fi telephony
bridges traditional telecommunications, data communications, and
mobile technologies. A Wi-Fi wireless telephone is a wireless LAN client
device, using the same network technology as wireless laptops and
PDAs, and sharing the same medium. A Wi-Fi wireless telephone is
also functionally equivalent to a wired telephone, requiring configuration
and management from the local enterprise telephone system. Lastly, a
Wi-Fi wireless telephone is a mobile communication device that requires
special considerations for continuous high-quality connections as the
user moves throughout the coverage area.
SpectraLink pioneered the use of Wi-Fi telephones in a wide variety of
applications and environments, making SpectraLink’s NetLink Wireless
Telephones the market-leading Wi-Fi telephone devices. This document
identifies issues and solutions based on SpectraLink’s extensive
experience with Wi-Fi telephony.
1.1 Comparing
Voice and Data
Voice and data applications have different attributes and network
requirements. The most significant difference is their tolerance for
network errors and delays. Whereas data applications are designed to
accept just about any amount of packet delays and retransmissions,
voice quality will suffer with just a few hundred milliseconds of delay or a
very small percentage of lost packets. Data applications are typically
bursty in terms of bandwidth utilization, while a telephone conversation
utilizes a consistent, and relatively small, amount of network bandwidth.
1.2 Implementation
Issues
Using a wireless LAN for voice is not complex, but there are some things
that need to be considered, particularly for enterprise applications. A
critical objective of deploying enterprise Wi-Fi telephony is to maintain
similar voice quality, reliability, and functionality as users expect from
their wired business telephones. The key issues in deploying Wi-Fi
telephony are coverage, capacity, quality of service (QoS), telephone
switch integration, and security. This white paper provides
recommendations for ensuring that a network environment is optimal for
SpectraLink’s NetLink Wireless Telephones.
2.0 Wireless LAN Layout Considerations
NetLink Wireless Telephones utilize a Wi-Fi network consisting of
wireless LAN access points (APs) distributed throughout an enterprise
environment. The required number of APs is driven by two factors:
coverage area and system capacity.