IoT & UC: Under the Hood of Mitel's Charles de Gaulle DeploymentIoT & UC: Under the Hood of Mitel's Charles de Gaulle Deployment

The intersection of UC and IoT is something we've heard about for years. We heard about it this year and last year, in 2015 and way back in ancient times. It's one of those things that perpetually has tons of potential, but details of real-world examples are few and far between.

In some cases, what's presented as a customer success story turns out to be a proof of concept describing what's possible, as opposed to something anyone is actually doing. In other cases, the company launches an IoT project intending to connect sensors to various comms and collaboration software. But as things get underway, the company finds implementing IoT to be more complicated and expensive than initially anticipated and ends up scrapping the UC integration -- and sometimes the entire project.

Part of me says the dearth of real-world UC-and-IoT examples is both understandable and acceptable. Despite years of us talking about it, integrating the two is pretty cutting-edge stuff, so it shouldn't be surprising if vendors are talking about it more than enterprises are buying it. But another part of me says, "Get on with it!" If this is real, then it's high time we have some real-world use cases to talk about.

So my interest was piqued when I heard of Charles de Gaulle Airport working with Mitel to combine UC and IoT. Dave Michels, of TalkingPointz, mentioned it in passing here on No Jitter. Tim Banting, of Current Analysis, did a write-up. And, of course, Mitel mentions it in passing in a case study on its site. But I wanted to get a bit more into the weeds, so I sat down a couple times with Joshua Haslett, Mitel's GM of embedded communications, to get my head around it.

Safety First
Here's what Charles de Gaulle is doing at a high level. It began by outfitting the airport's automated external defibrillator (AED) cabinets with sensors that trigger messages to airport medical staff whenever a cabinet door opens. In the past, opening a cabinet would simply sound an alarm, but what the alarm was for or who was responding to it wasn't necessarily clear. With IoT, the appropriate personnel receive the alerts, and they can notify others that they're responding.

Charles de Gaulle is now extending the solution to maintenance processes. Environmental sensors monitor temperature and carbon dioxide levels throughout the airport. When, for example, the temperature of a certain part of a terminal exceeds a set threshold, sensors trigger messages to maintenance personnel, who are dispatched to identify and repair the problem.

Now let's drill down a bit. First, to give credit where credit is due, Hub One, a Paris-based systems integrator and longtime Mitel partner, developed much of the IoT solution. Hub One offers a hosted UC service based on Mitel's MiVoice Business, which provides telephony for Charles de Gaulle, as well as other European airports.

Hub One started Charles de Gaulle's IoT project, which seems to center on asset tracking, back in 2014. LoRa sensors track luggage carts as they move through the baggage-handling system. Sensors also track location of fuel trucks, catering trucks, and the trolleys pulling luggage carts, ensuring they're on hand when needed. Each morning shortly after midnight the system locates the various carts and trucks so airport personnel can move them to the correct locations for the next shift.

Hub One developed an app, called DataViz, that presents Charles de Gaulle's IT staff with a graphical presentation of data gathered across all the sensors. Haslett described his experience walking through the baggage routing network in the bowels of the airport, seeing how well the IoT systems worked, but also noting its near-complete automation. One guy dealt with bags that the system identified as mis-routed or were otherwise problematic, Haslett recalled, but other than that the system required no real human interaction.

So Mitel started sniffing around for processes where IoT might lead to human interactions. The first it came up with involved those AED cabinets. As I mentioned above, opening a cabinet no longer simply triggers an emergency alarm but generates voice and SMS alerts for the airport's emergency response personnel. Here's how it works:

Click to the next page to continue reading about Charles de Gaulle IoT deployment

Continued from Page 1Now, I'm pretty up to speed on all the MiThis and MiThats that comprise the Mitel portfolio, but this notification thingy was a new to me. It turns out it's new to Mitel, too. A couple years ago Mitel entered into an OEM arrangement with Benbria, one of Mitel Chairman Terry Matthews' concerns at his investment management firm, Wesley Clover, to sell a notification server called Blazecast. In mid-2016 Mitel bought Blazecast and subsequently:

Mitel Mass Notification's first IoT application was the Charles de Gaulle AED cabinets. Pulling directory data from its hosted UC service, Hub One associated specified Charles de Gaulle employees with different workflows. Unauthorized access to an AED cabinet triggers a workflow that sends a text or voice alert specifically to airport medical personnel. The Mitel notification service generates both types of alerts, giving the location of the opened cabinet and prompting the person contacted to confirm he or she is on the way. If needed, responders can set up a one-touch audio conference to confer with others involved in the response. Notifications that go unacknowledged get escalated to a wider set of employees.

I'm not clear how many AED cabinets Charles de Gaulle has outfitted with LoRa sensors to date. I was recently at Charles de Gaulle and was tempted to run through the terminal flipping open all the doors to see what happened (before being tackled by security and arrested). All cabinets have certainly not been IoT-enabled, but Mitel says many have.

Moving Beyond Door Sensors
Mitel and Hub One are now looking at other use cases where they can enhance Charles de Gaulle's IoT network with real-time communications. Besides the environmental sensors mentioned above, they're in the process of deploying location sensors on wheelchairs and people movers. When a passenger needs a wheelchair, the gate agent presses a button to send an alert that provides the gate number and the location of the nearest wheelchair to appropriate staff.

Charles de Gaulle isn't Mitel's only customer combining IoT with its various communications solutions. Bob Agnes, EVP and president of Mitel's Enterprise Division, talks about the European shipping company whose trucks have sensors that detect imminent mechanical problems. The sensors send alerts to the driver, along with suggestions on the nearest place to get the repair. The company's customer service agents also receive alerts so they can tell clients about shipment delays.

And Haslett speaks about the U.S. manufacturer that has placed sensors on its factory machines. When there's a failure and production has stopped, alerts are sent out to workers on the next shift telling them not to come in, to suppliers telling them to delay shipments, and to delivery drivers telling them there'll be fewer or no products to pick up.

And Tony Pereira, VP of business development and strategic partnerships at Mitel, tells me about an agricultural company with pheromone sensors that identify what kind of pests have taken up residence in grain silos. It sends messages "telling exterminators if they should bring a mousetrap or bring a gun." (OK, this is from a discussion about possible IoT-UC integrations and isn't what any Mitel customers are doing. But Tony's quote was too good not to include.)

At first glance, Mitel's IoT solutions hinge mainly on its mass notification service, which it leverages as the messaging component that all IoT solutions need for sending SMS alerts to people. But MiVoice Business, which directly integrates with the mass notification service, comes into play for speech-to-text calling, PSTN calling, extension dialing, paging, and conference calling. It's an interesting example of how traditional UC technology can be brought to bear as enterprises start enhancing their IoT deployments with real-time communications.

Learn more about the intersection of IoT and UC at Enterprise Connect 2018, March 12 to 15, in Orlando, Fla. Register now using the code NOJITTER to save an additional $200 off the Advance Rate or get a free Expo Plus pass.

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