According to a new analysis from ABI Research, fixed and mobile operators will run up a fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) CapEx bill of more than US$450mn over the next five years in an effort to halt traffic migration to voice over IP (VoIP) service providers. And, says the ‘Fixed-Mobile Convergence’ report, this investment will reap global FMC service revenues of US$97bn in 2011, mainly from offering lower fixed-line call charges to mobile users.

“Operators are seeing their core voice revenues come under pressure from VoIP, and they need to minimise call substitution,” ventures ABI Research analyst Ian Cox. “One way is to provide services over the broadband fixed network using a mobile device. Both dual use and single use devices will be able to do that over Wi-Fi and micro cellular access points in the home and office.”

“UMA and SIP with VCC are competing in this market with other approaches, including picocell and femtocell access points, which will lead to a dynamic and competitive market developing over the next five years,” adds Cox.

ABI points out that for users FMC will reduce call charges when the device is connected to an indoor access point. It will also allow the same device to be used everywhere with a single bill and contact list. “Convenience and lower call charges are an attractive combination,” Cox notes, “but call charges need to be simple to understand, and dual-use devices need to be as appealing as single-use devices in terms of battery life, price and choice of models.”

For vendors, FMC will allow continued development of SIP solutions. SIP enables new services to be introduced quickly, tried and discarded if they are not popular. A single database holds all subscriber information, leading to lower operating costs for multiple services over multiple access technologies.

Faroe away
In other convergence news Faroese Telecom (OK, you never heard of it, but it’s apparently been around for a century) has contracted Broadsoft Inc to supply it with the BroadWorks platform to support a range of enterprise FMC services. The first of these will allow users to take advantage of a single phone number that contacts them on any device and also delivers voice applications traditionally only available on an expensive IP PBX.

Ordinarily, unanswered calls to desk phones automatically go to voicemail. The Faroese Telecom FMC solution allows calls to desk phones to ring any or all of 10 preset numbers simultaneously - for example mobile phone, home phone, other office and so on. The system enables standard 2G mobile phones to function identically to IP extensions, allowing services such as unified voicemail, call transfer, call forwarding, extension dialling, integrated corporate directory and auto-attendant.

The new FMC solution also offers standard hosted PBX (IP Centrex) services and Business Trunking (IP Trunking) services, which allow the new applications to be simply overlaid onto existing PBX infrastructure. Faroese Telecom will target businesses of all sizes on the Faroe Islands with these services, especially businesses with a mobile or disparate work force.
John Williamson