That's enough to provide basic connectivity for the MCA. However, you can tweak the MCA's configuration in a variety of ways, including your own parameters for voice quality and bridge information to your local PBX. The MCC software can be similarly tweaked, especially when it comes to security.

The Bottom Line DiVitas Mobile Convergence Appliance DiVitas, divitas.com Very Good  8.5 criteria score weight Management 8 25% Security 9 25% Performance 8 20% Ease-of-use 8 10% Setup 9 10% Value 9 10% Cost: 10-user starter kit (appliance and software), $5,495; additional clients start at $550 Platforms: Currently supports WinCE clients. Future platforms will include Symbian, Nokia E-series handsets, and Palm. Bottom Line: DiVitas solution takes on the tricky task of handing off active mobile voice sessions between disparate wireless networks. The solution combines connection analysis with specific application requirements, resulting not only in better connectivity for your users, but considerable cost savings for organizations with lots of road warriors. About our Reviews and Scoring Methodology

The typical DiVitas authentication is dual mode, meaning it’s first based on hardware authentication (usually the MAC address of a wireless card or the EIN of a handset) followed by a software-based authentication process dependent on log-in credentials secured by HTTPS. During the setup task, we were wishing for an auto-discovery function such as those found in many VoIP PBXs. When handsets are first seen, they're put into a "sin bin" until a systems administrator recognizes them and moves the phone definition to where it's supposed to be.

To safeguard your tweaks, the MCA supports snapping system images of both the appliance and your handsets. This allows you to save multiple images in case something goes wrong, although images aren't specific to a particular handset. The configuration even goes as far as a menu-driven resource allocation for specific users or groups of users. Various features can be turned on or off this way, most significantly the mobility features.

All MCA management tasks are handled via an SSL-encrypted interface on a Web browser. That includes software tweaks specific to the MCA as well as configurations specific to your local PBX and registered handset devices.

During our testing, we had the MCA talking to a Mediatrix SIP gateway in the lab that in turn had access to the University of Hawaii's internal PBX via POTS lines in the lab. That meant we could be using a hotel Wi-Fi connection in Waikiki, yet still make local calls using U of H's PBX. The MCA dial plan even allowed us to configure the SIP gateway to pre-pend digits for the appropriate campus, local, or long distance access.

For larger companies, this can even be extended to specific area codes, so that your cell phones can be told to access specific gateways based on which number they're trying to dial. That kind of functionality means fast ROI as long as your user base faces this situation often enough. Instead of spending hundreds for a sales tech in Spain to dial the support department in California, she can literally make it an internal call as long as her phone can see a Wi-Fi link.

Overall, DiVitas' solution is fantastic for companies with large fleets of roaming voice users. In the future, DiVitas intends to make the MCA a general wireless application facilitator. Right now, the box is definitely geared towards integrating voice across whatever wireless network is at hand. Future generations could supply these same smarts to other applications, especially video and proprietary data applications that need a lot of bandwidth.