IST-CNS Unified Communications

What is Unified Communications?

Designed to unify and simplify the various methods of communications in use today - including email, voicemail, fax, video and fax messages - the CNS Unified Communications (UC) solution combines unified messaging, advanced call management, personal information management and notification features into one Unified Communications Framework that is accessible from any device - the web, wireless internet devices, desktop device and phone. Unified Communications allows the consumer to not only manage messages, but manage communications. Unified communications is both network- and device-agnostic, scales from dozens to thousands of members, provides a medium-independent representation of information and can seamlessly incorporate new technologies as they emerge.

Everyone today has multiple phones and devices. We're all users of multiple networks - fixed, Internet, cable, satellite. Unified Communications is the tool for bringing them all together.

Unified Communications enables you to become geographically independent. You no longer have to wait by the phone for that important call. Or stand by the fax machine because your boss said she "just sent" an important fax that needs immediate attention. Unified Communications allows you to send/receive communications from any location, using any device.

A unified mailbox is really just the small repository piece of a broad, active system that actively routes and handles all of your communication interactions.

Unified Communications broadens the view of what constitutes a "message". Increasingly, "messages" are sent not by people, but by processes and software agents. A student can be notified instantly when a class spot becomes available and he can register for the class through his wireless device. A lab technician can be notified of the results when her spectrometer analysis is finished. A faculty member can send an instant message that a class has been moved to a new location due to a building evacuation.

According to a recent Cahners In-Stat report, approximately 32 million U.S. employees routinely work from home or away from the office in 2001. Unified Communications enables them to do this without sacrificing productivity.

Unified Communications service provides:

Unified in-box. The service provides integrated message notification, which allows consumers to receive all their messages in a single mail-box, regardless of how the message was originally sent. When you return to your office, instead of checking your new email on your desktop and your new voice mail on your phone and your new faxes on the fax machine, you can check all of your new messages in one place: either the phone, the desktop, or your wireless device.
Ubiquitous communications. UC service enables consumers to send, receive and manage a variety of message types from virtually any communications device. For example, you can listen to an email with a phone. Or reply to a voice mail with your desktop PC.
Single-number reach services. Also known as find-me / follow-me service. Callers can dial one phone number and, depending on where you have configured that phone to be forwarded, they can reach you whether you're at your desk or at an alternate location.
Call screening capabilities. This allows you to see or hear who is calling. You can then accept the call, forward the call to voice mail, or forward the call to another person who can better assist the caller - all before the call is answered from the caller's perspective.
Filtering for relevant content. Relevant content is content explicitly desired by and expected by the consumer. "High relevancy" content is considered personalized information created by users themselves for themselves, such as calendaring events, address book entries, personal communications and other personal information. Other kinds of relevant content is based upon importance of the senders/originators of the information to the user, such as messages sent by business colleagues, family and friends. You may not want to listen to all of your email messages through the phone; you can filter the messages so that only certain types of messages (by sender, by date, by key words, etc.) will be read.
Notification. You may want to be notified when a certain message is received (by sender, by date, by key words, etc.). UC allows you to send/receive notifications to any phone, wireless device, pager, email or fax. UC can also initiate reminder calls.
Presence and availability management, which allows subscribers to let others know where they are or their availability status.
Other value-added services: Short messaging services that allow subscribes to send and receive short messages through their mobile, interactive devices. Voice activated services, which allow subscribers to place calls and navigate their mailbox utilizing voice commands. Conference-call initiation. Fax-, voice- and email-broadcasting are available to reach a large number of users at once. Fax- and audio-on-demand services can allow customers to receive the information with minimal intervention from a person.

Read the Gartner Group Report about Unified Communications

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Created on: December 18, 2001
Last revised: September 20, 2004