Wireless Access

We're moving to a new building and will be 90% VoWLAN using the Lync.  The plan is to buy hundreds of headsets for all the users to pair with their computer, and we're trying to figure out which headsets to purchase.  This will be an (almost) all wireless office and I 'm concerned about interference.  Granted, the majority of our clients are 5GHz, I just want to be sure that we keep 2.4GHz as clean as possible for guest and BYOD use.  Are there any considerations that need to be made when looking at Bluetooth headsets?

We're currently looking at the Plantronics Voyager Legend UC, which is optimized for MS Lync.

Check out the page here:  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/lync/gg278164

We've found a headset that we really like, which happens to be a Lync optimized headset, but I'm wanting to know from a wireless interference standpoint, is there anything to be concerned about?

Will all bluetooth headsets have the same amount of interference?

Do they all frequency hop?

Do they need to be certified to work within wireless offices?

Etc.

I've heard that bluetooth devices (headsets, keyboards, mice) were not allowed in Aruba's own offices.  Not sure how much validity there is to that, but I figure if there's any truth to that then I need to consider not deploying bluetooth headsets in such a large quantity.

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@thecompnerd wrote:

We've found a headset that we really like, which happens to be a Lync optimized headset, but I'm wanting to know from a wireless interference standpoint, is there anything to be concerned about?

Will all bluetooth headsets have the same amount of interference?

Do they all frequency hop?

Do they need to be certified to work within wireless offices?

Etc.

 

I've heard that bluetooth devices (headsets, keyboards, mice) were not allowed in Aruba's own offices.  Not sure how much validity there is to that, but I figure if there's any truth to that then I need to consider not deploying bluetooth headsets in such a large quantity.

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Here is my view on Bluetooth Headsets:

Bluetooth does cause interference, so we never suggest that anyone build any critical infrastructure like voice calling on Bluetooth for that reason. We might be able to tolerate some bluetooth use, but if it gets pervasive, we would not be able to reverse our position, after the interference makes wifi unbearable.

With that being said, if this will be a Lync deployment, we should be offering any other options BESIDES bluetooth technology like DECT. Here is a page for Lync-Certified headsets and there are models that support DECT (900mhz)instead of bluetooth here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/lync/gg278173

With everything else, anything that you are interested in should be tested to ensure that the data sheet has not changed and the company is not using Bluetooth instead of DECT in later models.

To recap:

- Try to stay away from bluetooth and get DECT-Compatible headsets, instead
- Purchase one of each model that you would like to try, to ensure that the underlying technology has not changed vs. what is on the data sheet.
- Offer users a USB hard-phone option if possible to minimize RF use: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/lync/gg278173 (I personally use the SNOM 600UC phone, but evaluate it to see if it meets your needs)

Thanks for the information.  Looking at the DECT headset that Plantronics makes.  I believe this is the direction we will go.