Business café adopts Cisco unified communications platform

By Lynn Ng

Local high-tech café Geek Terminal has unveiled its Cisco-powered unified communications platform for greater efficiency last week. The café caters to business road warriors who need to multi-task while they eat. With the adoption of Cisco’s Smart Business Communications System (SBCS),Geek Terminal can now be an “office away from the office” for corporate business travellers and top senior executives,

said Geek Terminal Pte Ltd CEO Christopher Lee.

The scalable solution provides one tightly integrated package that includes wireless Internet surfing, voice, data and business applications, for users that can number from eight to 48.

In view of the online security risks present for most of its customers who are in the financial industry, Geek Terminal’s access points are configured with PSPF (Public Secure Packet Forwarding). This enables a separate Internet connection for individual users even though they are using a shared WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network).

Geek Terminal’s system is more than an IP PBX (Internet Protocol Private Branch Exchange) that switches calls between IP and traditional land lines. Also, DID (Direct Inward Dialling) numbers are available for every phone and users can receive inbound overseas calls free of charge.

Users of Nokia E-series mobile phones can also make free calls over the café’s PBX system, instead of using the GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) network, as long as they are within the café’s SBCS WLAN coverage range. All they have to do is sync their devices with the SBCS system. The café can leverage on this to operate its in-house walkie talkie system.

Geek Terminal is also deploying Cisco IP Phones to offer a wider range of services to customers such as live info feeds (flight departures and arrivals, news headlines, currency exchange rates, etc), and applications like taxi booking, browsing, ordering of items from the online menu, billing as well as getting help from the service staff.

The interactive IP Phone can even be an alternative means of generating revenue by positioning it as an advertisement space with precise metrics to gauge ad effectiveness.

Cisco Singapore Managing Director Tom Cheong said that the deployment of the solution at Geek Terminal is an example of how unified communications creates workspace for mobile workers to be just as productive and efficient as in the office.

It is also an ideal platform for Cisco, which has been widely recognised as a service provider for large firms in the enterprise space, to showcase its solutions in an SME (small medium enterprise) environment, he added.

“Geek Terminal is a milestone for Cisco and sends the message out there that Cisco is here to stay,” Mr Cheong said.