Service Providers Take on the Office With FMC

With mobility now a core part of the business landscape, efforts to integrate it within the existing fixed-office topology are accelerating, with enterprise systems from IP PBX makers the most common approach. However, service providers like EMBARQ Corp. and Sprint are beginning to address the market, and AT&T Inc. is out in front with a high-profile refocusing effort to sell a unified wireless/wireline portfolio.

Click to Enlarge

True enterprise fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) involves bridging the gap between fixed networks with the mobile cellular network so that it’s possible to communicate on and across either network seamlessly. Dual-mode is a core FMC application that refers to the ability of mobile users to use a single device to make voice calls over the cellular network as well as an IP PBX-enabled enterprise Wi-Fi network. Typically, this can be done in-house with hardware and a phone client — Nokia-Siemens, for instance, recently debuted the HiPath MobileConnect, which extends the user’s enterprise telephony presence (including IP PBX number, director, and call features) to a dual-mode handset for single number reachability. MobileConnect works in conjunction with a MobileConnect client and the IP PBX to route calls automatically to the lowest-cost network and enable seamless roaming.

AT&T is laying the groundwork for service providers to enter the business with these kinds of applications by combining the sales forces of Cingular Wireless and BellSouth Corp. to create one marketing engine to offer both wireless and wireline service. Billing convergence will be the next step; the RBOC said the full suite of both portfolios will be available on a single contract for midsized and large businesses by the end of the year. Also, customers may be able to make a single revenue commitment that includes wireline and wireless calling volumes, resulting in wireline service discounts, and customers’ wireline calls could receive special on-net rates when calling other AT&T wireless or wireline business users.

A new application on the horizon is cellular access to corporate AT&T VPNs. Remote and mobile workers can use Wi-Fi or AT&T’s wireless data service to access their company’s VPN, business applications and corporate information.

All of this comes on the heels of news this spring that AT&T and Cisco Systems Inc. will bundle the AT&T Wireless WAN Connectivity Service and the new Cisco 3G-Enabled Wireless WAN High-Speed WAN Interface Card (HWIC) for routers. The wireless module is enabled for AT&T’s UMTS/HSDPA-based BroadbandConnect service, targeted at companies that need diverse broadband backup, work in ad hoc situations such as construction sites, operate in rural areas and the like. On a broader level, it helps extend the reach of the WAN and enables greater convergence for the delivery of unified communications across a variety of networks.

The move to embrace wireless more fully is simply a result of demand. As of the end of 2006, revenue from AT&T’s enterprise wireless business customers has experienced double-digit growth, compared with the previous six quarters, driven by strong demand from companies that are increasing their spend for wireless and mobility solutions. It falls in line with analyst expectations; the transformation of various enterprise applications from fixed to mobile access technology will generate more than $66 billion in carrier service revenue over the next five years, says Insight Research Corp. By the close of 2007, services revenue generated by mobile applications traversing wired and wireless networks in the United States will reach more than $9 billion; by 2012, the value of services revenue supporting those applications is forecast to grow to nearly $13 billion. And, a new study from research firm TelecomWeb reports that although enterprise expenditure on FMC was in its early stages during 2006, the trend toward adoption of such voice solutions will command a greater percentage of the overall wireless communications budget in 2007.

Click to Enlarge

Elsewhere on the FMC front, EMBARQ has two dual-mode applications, SmartConnect and SmartConnect Plus, for the business market. The former allows users to switch manually between Wi-Fi, wireline or wireless calls, while the latter is a seamless handoff service for Wi-Fi-cellular roaming via a dual-mode handset. “Over 40 percent of billed wireless minutes occur inside business locations,” says Kenny Wyatt, vice president of product and marketing at EMBARQ. “That’s just unnecessary. There’s a real need for this product.”

Wyatt says that because the price points for dual-mode handsets are still a bit steep, businesses often are sold on the toll savings ROI, combined with productivity gains that FMC and the phones engender — being able to always be in touch, smart phone capabilities like remote synching of e-mail and calendars, and so on. “But prices will come down over time as more are deployed and more hotspots and muni networks come online,” he says. “And you’ll see FMC accelerate. That will make for new applications and more types of integration beyond dual-mode.”

Vendors such as Sylantro Systems Corp. and Tekelec have developed FMC applications like the ability for several phones (fixed and wireless) to ring simultaneously, or to leverage Web services to create mash-ups between mobile voice call continuity and video, for instance. “The idea of FMC ultimately is to seamlessly integrate the customer’s experience, regardless of device and method,” explains Kim Ganote, director of integrated solutions at Sprint. “Initially, people thought about FMC in the business as being about dual-mode devices, but the idea has evolved to include data, video and a range of devices, not just phones.”

Sprint launched a wireless integration package late last year that extends PBX functionalities to mobile handsets, for four-digit dialing, integrated voice mail, single phone number and handoff from the IP PBX LAN to a cell phone. “They use their phones just as they would a deskset,” says Ganote. “It makes for easier moves, adds and changes and telecom cost management. Our next moves are integration with PBXs,” she adds. “But we’re watching and waiting to develop further applications. As the first carrier to develop IMS in the core, we feel we’re in a good position to move when the market does.”

While service providers see the value of offering FMC to businesses, whether companies embrace a carrier-delivered approach remains to be seen. TelecomWeb found that by 2010, the majority of the firms surveyed in the United States and Canada predict having a mobile workforce of between 26 percent and 50 percent. And, nearly half of the U.S. and Canadian organizations surveyed preferred enterprise-centric rather than carrier-centric FMC. “The preference for enterprise-centric FMC voice solutions in the United States, Canada and globally gives vendors an early advantage in working with prospects to implement such schemes,” says John Lilley, program director. “At the same time, carriers already have established themselves as credible alternatives. This is particularly true in the international environment, where many mobile operators have launched FMC offerings, albeit mostly for the residential market.”

In the enterprise-centric FMC voice space, vendors need to move swiftly to strengthen their edges, perhaps with the ability to bring some kind of profitable mass customization to their offerings that also will meet individual business requirements, he adds.

“For carriers to succeed in this, it needs to be more than ‘me-too’ dual-mode offers,” explains Rod Hodgman, vice president of marketing at Covergence Inc., a session border controller vendor. “It doesn’t make sense just to leverage VoIP — they have to provide a range of services and be full-service service providers. But they have to figure out what services make sense — IM, unified communications, presence, video, and so on.”