Informa Telecoms & Media has forecast that there will be 170 million fixed mobile convergence (FMC) subscribers by 2012 generating $33.4bn of revenue, but caution that without an increase in cooperation between all of the value chain players involved the industry faces an uphill struggle. The majority of these subscribers will be within the consumer segment with 145 million by 2012 but relative penetration will be lower than the enterprise segment where 8.8% of the total subscriber base will use FMC versus 4.8% for the consumer.

This disparity is a good indication of one of the major challenges facing FMC, states Paul Merry, Senior Analyst with Informa Telecoms & Media and lead author of the study. FMC is a good idea for operators as it reduces OPEX but is less of an attraction to consumers at least in its early stages. Merry explains, business use of FMC makes sense as it enables a number of attractive services such as unified messaging, IP PBX integration and a single communication account that can be managed by corporate IT personnel. Consumer FMC in comparison only offers the convenience of a single bill and discounted in-home pricing currently.
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