VoIP Application Servers Help Cellcos Expand in Business Arena

Already having been responsible for the disruptive trend of wireline replacement on the home front, cellular network operators now are turning their attentions to getting a bigger piece of the business communications buy. And the trend toward fixed/mobile convergence may help that along.

For example, French mobile operator SFR announced at the recent 3GSM show in Barcelona, Spain, that it will be using Thomson’s Cirpack switches with mobile IP Centrex capabilities to offer advanced business telephony features with fixed/mobile convergence to enterprise users. The gear will enable SFR, which has 17.8 million subscribers, to offer businesses a single phone number for both mobile and fixed lines, with simultaneous ringing and unified voice messaging on both phones. It also will allow SFR’s business customers that choose the service to have the same advanced features on their cell phones that are available on enterprise IP Centrex systems — such as call transfer, call conferencing, short-dialing, filtering and supervision by an assistant.

BroadSoft’s Scott Wharton

“The PBX market is a $10-billion market, and basically we’re just applying some of the value of that market to the mobile network,” says Scott Wharton, vice president of marketing at BroadSoft Inc.

Wharton says he believes BroadSoft was the first to announce a PBX application in the mobile space. To create its mobile PBX, BroadSoft actually stripped functionality out of its existing PBX solution because it was redundant to the mobile switching centers (MSCs) in cellular service providers’ networks. Of course, it also had to ensure interworking with MSCs.

“A couple of years ago we launched an application called mobile PBX, and essentially what it was a repackaging of our existing applications, but really wrapping it around what a cellular or mobile provider could offer,” he says. “And it is very different because on the fixed line side we talk a lot about mobility being really important, whereas that’s kind of redundant for a mobile carrier. A lot of the value for mobile carriers is going to be more around desktop control and click-to-dial and productivity as opposed to, on the fixed side, it was more around providing the mobility that you don’t have.”

Centennial de Puerto Rico, the incumbent fixed and mobile service provider in Puerto Rico, is BroadSoft’s one named customer for this gear. It’s using BroadSoft software for both a hosted PBX on its fixed network and a mobile PBX service to its cellular customers, says Wharton.

Because there is now a lot of demand for fixed/mobile convergence deployments, BroadSoft at 3GSM announced a new product called the BroadWorks Mobility Manager, which is a standard component of IMS networks that provides the handoff between mobile and fixed networks, says Wharton. “We wanted to be able to do that in conjunction with our application as opposed to having to integrate a third-party vendor,” he says. Mobility Manager also allows service providers to do direct interworking with their MSCs without having to get permission from their switching vendor, he adds.

Sylantro’s Ron Raffensperger

Another application server provider, Sylantro Systems Corp., began catering to cellular service providers about a year ago when it adapted its hosted PBX platform for their needs, says Ron Raffensperger, senior vice president of marketing at Sylantro. It did so by creating an IMS “ISC” interface for the current product to allow for its deployment in 3GPP networks. It also created a “Virtual Mobile PBX” capability, which allows PBX features to be accessed from a normal mobile handset. That required Sylantro to modify its SIP stack to work with a gateway MSC product from a major network equipment provider. Sylantro also has been working with a major WiMAX network equipment provider “to match our product to their WiMAX IMS solution,” says Raffensperger, noting the only announced Sylantro wireless customer who has deployed it is Korea Telecom for their WiBro service, but there are deployed examples of both Sylantro’s IMS with WiMAX and Wireless Virtual PBX offerings in Europe.

“There is a large opportunity to increase revenues and cannibalize other carriers’ revenue by offering services such as Virtual Wireless PBX, which allows full PBX dialing and feature use from a normal mobile handset. This capability would make a good optional service,” adds Raffensperger. “There is also the opportunity to integrate hosted Internet applications, such as Salesforce.com, using the Web Services capabilities of a feature server.”

According to Raffensperger, the move by VoIP application server providers to address the cellular service provider space is relatively new and was spurred by IMS. “IMS prompted us to look at mobile carriers and new network equipment provider partners, who then took us into the mobile carriers,” he says, adding that “resulted in a recognition by both app server providers and carriers that the advanced services can increase both customer footprint and ARPU.”

Tekelec Switching Group’s Rob Russell

According to Rob Russell, director of product marketing for Tekelec Switching Group (which also offers mobile PBX and FMC capabilities), it’s increasingly difficult for cellular providers to differentiate their services so wireless operators increasingly are looking to expand their portfolios to drive new revenue and lock in existing business customers that now might have more service provider options due to new competition in a given market. So service providers are looking first to deliver hosted VoIP, either in collaboration with other service providers or on their own. The next step, says Russell, is to be able to merge those services into a wireless offering through dual-mode (Wi-Fi/mobile) phones. That FMC trend is expected to accelerate this year, says Russell, helped in part by sound performance improvements to the Wi-Fi side of such dual-mode phones.

Links

BroadSoft Inc. www.broadsoft.com Centennial de Puerto Rico www.centennialpr.com Sylantro Systems Corp. www.sylantro.com Thomson www.thomson.net