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business case

Enterprises choosing FMC for functionality not cost reduction

Is fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) finally ready for mainstream take-off? Analysts certainly think so. Strategy Analytics forecasts that the broad brush of enterprise FMC solutions will be a $50 billion market by 2012, following a significant uptick this year. What’s attracting companies the most is improved employee contactability and productivity rather than pure cost reduction.

According to David Kerr, Vice-President of the Global Wireless Practice at Strategy Analytics, “The emergence of a business justification for FMC based on business processes, the breaking down of technology barriers and increased interest in the concept, rather than simple cost justification, will feed through the market and drive the demand for FMC.”

Generally, fixed mobile convergence is seen as providing two main benefits to enterprises: delivering reduced costs by shifting voice traffic onto Wi-Fi networks when staff are in corporate offices; and enabling improved communications by providing one-number contact, unified voice messaging and access to enterprise telephony functions from mobile devices.

no easy cost savings

Unfortunately, using FMC as a way to control corporate mobile voice bills is not as straightforward a proposition as it may initially seem. The issue is that in order to shift voice calls onto a Wi-Fi network, infrastructure has to be deployed which is capable of providing the quality of service necessary to support voice. This is challenging in terms of hardware configuration and requires significant up-front capital expenditure, while still only benefiting staff when on-site – not when visiting customer sites or when travelling, when voice spend is likely to be at its highest.

David Mackenzie, Product Manager in the Consulting & Solutions Integration Business Unit at Orange Business Services, warns: “It’s not a simple calculation. You can’t just say, ‘well, we’ve got 200 mobile phones and we’ll save 10% of the calls, therefore that’s this much per year’. It really is a sophisticated consultancy exercise for an individual business to work out exactly where it is going to get the benefits.”

extending enterprise features

In contrast, extending enterprise telephony features through fixed mobile convergence is an easier-sell, as it can provide tangible benefits to businesses. Employees with mobile phones integrated with the corporate PBX are always contactable via a single phone number; have a single voicemail box; can access telephony features including call transfer and conference call set-up; and are able to take advantage of lower-cost international calls via the corporate telephony plan. Orange has found that it is these very features that multinational companies are requesting when examining FMC.

FMC also has a vital role to play in enabling new working practices, as a growing number of employees spend time working from home or from satellite offices. For these workers, the ability to contact colleagues and remain easily reachable is vital.

Mackenzie notes that many organizations interested in FMC are “the types of businesses that are rebuilding the way they work”, and are therefore also looking at other Orange products to enable seamless mobility for employees –“people who are looking to move away from the office-based, old-fashioned view of the world, to a much more mobile workforce,” he adds.

future features

Looking forward, there is the potential for future FMC developments to address issues such as the use of Wi-Fi hotspots to provide corporate voice access to travelling staff who would otherwise be dependent on roaming GSM use. But there are significant security issues to address here in order to control access to the enterprise voice network — analogous to the rollout of VPNs to enable corporate data access via third-party hotspots.

In addition to voice, there is also the potential for some data services to be extended via FMC. Presence support will enable corporate directories to be enhanced to indicate where users are, what their availability is, and which device they are using, so that callers will know the best way to make contact, and corporate directory access for mobile users will also bring benefits — while ensuring that information use remains controlled.

Orange FMC products

For multinational businesses, Orange Business Services offers Unik for corporate, targeted at deployments with thousands of users, and available in the 100+ countries where its enterprise telephony products are sold. This product is an extension to the corporate PBX, with employees provided with two phones (IP desk phone and mobile), a single voicemail box, single fixed-line telephone number, and access to a range of PBX features when mobile via the GSM network. Unik for corporate also enables international calls to be routed via the IP PBX, delivering reduced costs and allowing usage to be monitored.

In four markets (France, Poland, Spain and the UK), Unik for business is also available, targeting small companies with three-to-five users per Livebox Wi-Fi access point, and functioning as an extension of the mobile network. In this case, a single handset is used (dual-mode GSM/WiFi), with GSM connectivity when on the move, and Wi-Fi access when in the office. In both cases, users are contactable by a mobile phone number.