How Can I Use Fixed Mobile Convergence To Benefit My Business?
Why Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC)?
ICT managers at companies of all sizes are faced with the challenges of reducing and controlling mobile spending. Most have their fixed-line telecoms costs under control, however their fixed-to-mobile call and stand-alone mobile charges have become a growing element of cost. By not managing mobile device usage and creating mobility policies, many enterprises are paying far more for enterprise mobility than they should be.
How to approach FMC
Currently, there are three broad approaches to FMC:
- A handset-centric dual-mode approach where the enterprise replaces the mobile network with short-range radio technology, such as WiFi or Bluetooth, in the office. The mobile network is retained for out-of-office mobility and the enterprise retains its PBX for desktop phones.
- Fixed Mobile Integration. The enterprise uses signalling and/or VPN functionality to integrate mobile phones into the enterprise PBX providing enhanced mobile functionality and giving it more control over call routing and costs. The enterprise retains its PBX, its desktop phones and mobile devices.
- Fixed Mobile Substitution, whereby the enterprise replaces desktop phones with mobile devices. FMS can be provided through a hosted service. At a stroke this can eliminate all the costs associated with LAN engineering for VoIP and redundant investment in often rarely used fixed-line desktop phones.
Another factor to consider is the increasing convergence between WiFi and GSM technology – this is resulting in Voice-over WiFi starting to be one of the main drivers of FMC in the future. With the increased availability of WiFi-enabled handheld devices, the seamless handover of voice calls between GSM and enterprise wireless broadband networks will become a very attractive proposition. That said enterprises will need to consider many factors such as network security, bandwidth provision and quality of service, if Voice-over WiFi services are to be successful.
How FMC is delivered to enterprise customers is also critical. While many businesses have in-house teams to run PBX and desktop phones, it is unlikely they would want to take on the task of supporting thousands of devices running third-party client software. With this in mind one solution would be to outsource the FMC function to a managed service provider or systems integrator. This would help alleviate a lot of the hassle traditionally associated with mobile device management allowing ICT managers to concentrate on other mission-critical areas of their business.
FMC in the future
Undoubtedly, larger telecom network operators will play an increasing role in enterprise FMC. To date, ICT managers have kept operators at arms-length by deploying FMC solutions driven by smaller niche technology companies, however this is likely to change as network operators role out IP-based public networks.
This will mean sweeping changes to the communications services that are delivered to businesses in the future. The utopia of FMC of public networks is still some way off, so it will be interesting to see how this will develop over time. The age of FMC is here and now, so it is now up to enterprise users to develop effective strategies to ensure that their FMC deployments will meet their business needs.
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