hark at them, they've gone ALLmobile!
hark at them, they've gone ALLmobile!
The term Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) has captured the minds of businesses across the telecoms industry, with many players believing that its growing presence is causing a communications revolution. To date, the term has attracted a great deal of attention across the world, with anybody who is anybody in the telecoms space talking about FMC. However, in reality is FMC all just ‘hype’ and, if so, what are the alternative communications solutions out there?
As the saying goes the telecoms world really does believe in its own hype and this has led to vendors and operators trying to deliver a wide variety of convergent services, which they hope will enable them to make more money out of the fixed and mobile networks. But in reality, it has only been recently that FMC has started to move out of its hyperbole environment and into embryonic stages as operators and vendors try to create real solutions that work and will actually give them a slice of the FMC pie.
By converging fixed and mobile communication, FMC provides a synergistic combination of communications technologies, enabling all-in-one communication systems that allow voice to switch between networks on an ad hoc basis using a single mobile device. However, as these solutions start to impact the communications ecosystem, do FMC players really believe it is the best answer for businesses that are looking to adopt the latest communications systems? Or is it really just ‘hype’ as telecoms vendors make a last ditch attempt to breathe life back into their ever-decreasing profit margins by stamping a larger footprint into the office environment?
In today’s busy office environment the majority of workers still have to juggle a desk-based phone as well as their mobile, which is not only inconvenient but costly for businesses that support and cover the costs of these two phones. As mobility increases, and more staff work outside the traditional office environment, employees are still forced to give out multiple phone numbers. As FMC promotes a single dual handset that can be used anywhere at anytime it seems like the perfect solution to this issue. However, whether it is just hype or actually does work, integrating mobile and fixed-line networks is a complex matter and there are far simpler options already on the market that provide a single handset solution – the mobile!
Until now, mobility was designed as an extension to this office-based hardware telephony system, being perceived as too expensive to handle all office calls. But now it is the fixed-to-mobile element that is complex and expensive, with calls to mobile phones the main form of voice communication over traditional fixed-line handsets. So why not go all-mobile?
I am not saying that FMC will not take off on a large scale or even change the way we communicate. It probably will. But by using an all-mobile phone solution we can change the very nature of office communication without the need for the fixed-line.
Similar to when network-enabled voicemail was launched back in the 90’s it killed the office hardware business, so will an all-mobile phone system. Back then each office had a tape recorder in the reception which eventually became superseded by network-enabled voicemail. Today there is an all-mobile system that can supersede the office PBX, turning the business telephony industry (selling mostly hardware) into a service industry.
It doesn’t have to be expensive to introduce an all-mobile communication system because in today’s mobile environment employees already have a mobile. Calls made to the office number are handled exactly as they would on an ordinary telephone system; with the difference being that every call can be directed to the user’s mobile phone over a GSM network of choice, rather than over complicated office fixed-line telephony networks to a desk-based phone. There is no need for separate phone numbers for office and mobile as the user has just one number, and features users require from their desk phone are provided on their mobile so employees can do their job properly. This means businesses no longer need an office switchboard; a communications room for equipment; a service or maintenance contract; telecoms engineers; telecoms equipment and fixed handsets on every desk.
The simple-to-use system can be provisioned and activated instantly via the web and takes ten minutes to set up. Put bluntly, an all-mobile solution eradicates all the complexity of a fixed-line, and therefore an FMC solution, as there is no need for hardware, techies, long-term contracts and expensive upgrades. Handover between fixed and mobile is inherent - because it’s all-mobile.
In addition, an all-mobile system solves the problems found by all companies today when buying/changing phone systems: complexity, high upfront costs, hidden ongoing costs, high dependency on technical specialists, costly ongoing upgrades and, most importantly, very expensive monthly bills as their employees are increasingly mobile and incoming calls are redirected to them at full mobile rates.
GoHello identified this all-mobile trend early and invented an innovative solution that makes traditional telephony systems (analogue and VoIP) obsolete while removing the high costs of mobility but with full PBX functionality. Despite FMC being a concept or ‘hype’ for over ten years, its penetration is likely to be as little as 8.8% of the total business subscriber base by 2012 (according to Informa) and it remains to be seen if businesses will want to replace existing infrastructure, when you look behind the complex scenes of FMC. It is far easier to achieve mobility without high level infrastructure investment.
It could be said then that FMC is just more ‘hype’ everyone believes in. For me FMC is really about the move to mobile where everyone’s phone is wireless. Therefore let’s stop talking about FMC and instead talk about accelerating the move to mobile.
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