Yesterday I attended a seminar. You know the drill. Show up at a hotel conference room and listen a vendor talk abuot their solution. When the vendor is Cisco, the real talking is often done by a partner. NetVersant was the Cisco partner yesterday in this wireless mesh network session.

While the focus of the session was on wireless mesh network design and deployment, we started off with some demonstration of Cisco's incredibly cool Instant Mobile Communications Solution (IMX). Since VoIP is a pretty key facet of this, I thought I'd share. Those of you that support first responders in the event of an emergency, and those who live in parts of the world where natural disasters are a concern, pay attention. This is worth your time.

The IMX is a mobile solution. It fits in a Ford Explorer or the back of a pickup truck. It includes a combination of a self aligning VSAT dish and a Cisco 3845 ISR. Included are features like Cisco Call Manager Express for VoIP and Unity Express for voice mail in a package that consumes 600 watts and weighs less than 200 pounds.

It supports FXS/FSO, WiFi, VoIP and a variety of radio communications I'm not real familiar with at a working level. Think of it as a first responder network node in a box, that can be operational in under ten minutes when deployed. That's right, under 10 minutes to a worknig VSAT link to the PSTN, and the Internet, with on-site phones, VoIP, voice mail, WiFi and first responder radio.

If I hadn't seen it, I probably would have overlooked much commentary, but the team from Cisco and Adversant set this thing up out of the back of a car in the parking lot. The satellite dish has GPS technology built in. Given enough view of the southern sky, it finds the satellite, aligns itself and locks in to signal, and goes live effortlessly. It can support wired and wireless networking. Wired phones, traditional or VoIP, and was an amazing piece of technology.

Years ago I was part of the AT&T disaster recovery team. I remember trucks with switches, huge satellite dishes, and the huge crew required to get operational. Here Cisco provides a package that stands up an instant emergency network communications node supporting both voice and data in a package that runs of the same sort of generator you see hanging on the back of an RV.

If you're involved in first response, you know VoIP services played a big role in reacting to Katrina. You know how important communications is. And you know how critical easy-to-use solutions are. So while this may not be a pure VoIP community post, I'll say this solution really impressed me. I've got some first responder friends in different parts of the country that will be seriously interested. I've got some business colleagues who'll be interested in soemthing like this as a disaster recovery node option to consider for business continuity in the event of a disaster.

If this is something you're involved in, I'd really recommend checking out the IMX.


Technorati Tags: Cisco, IMX, Instant Mobile Communications, VoIP, emergeceny preparedness, disaster rescovery