SPOTLIGHT: Who needs a handset?

The 25 million land-line desk phones expected to be purchased by companies in 2008 will generate 47 million kilograms of solid waste and 1.5 million kilometers of cabling. This is equal to the weight of a WWII battleship and enough cable to stretch to the moon and back, according to U.K. software firm, OnRelay. OnRelay made their claim this week at the Mobile World Congress as a wake-up call for businesses to reconsider their investment in redundant IP telephony hardware like desk phones.

"Landline office phones are simply a waste. High performance mobile networks exist in every corner of the world, and the cost to use mobile phones is dropping dramatically. Using public mobile networks is becoming far more efficient than building and maintaining a private phone network inside a company."

OnRelay has a provider solution called MBX that enables enterprises to manage their calling through mobile phones rather than through an expensive deployment of IP-based handsets. Swisscom is currently deploying the OnRelay MBX solution. Release