Ask Steve: Fixed-Mobile Convergence Hype

Have you ever heard about a new technology offering or idea that instantly made you cringe? Maybe something that you knew deep in your heart had absolutely no future and seemed like a Full Employment Act for a carrier’s marketing department, but little more? This month in Ask Steve, let’s talk about one such concept: fixed-mobile convergence.

Q: A few years ago we heard a lot about FMC (fixed-mobile convergence). What happened to all the talk?

—Terry from Toronto, Ontario

A: Terry, FMC was a doomed concept from the get-go. It’s a marketing play that describes carriers’ desires to integrate the fixed and mobile sides of their businesses. AT&T Inc. is working to create a successful company out of the difficulties of separate fixed and mobile businesses. Verizon Communications Inc. is dealing with similar issues, although these days we haven’t the foggiest what Verizon is doing in SMB markets as it, once again, seems to be on a long SMB lunch break.

While FMC might be a nice moniker for a communications carrier’s internal reorganizing, it’s a terrible marketing concept for SMBs. It’s really hard to show the inherent value in a bunch of mobile-enabled telecom features that, at their heart, are fixed-line PBX-type features ported over to a mobile device. For example, how exciting is transferring a desk-based phone call to your mobile handset? Or how about four-digit dialing on your mobile phone? Some employees might get hot and bothered about these features, but certainly not enough to create an FMC supernova.

The bigger issue is the movement toward anywhere connectivity and employees’ desires to use technology to increase productivity and balance home/work commitments. In 2007, 24 percent of Canadian SMBs looked at smartphones (BlackBerry, Treo, iPhone, etc.) as their primary mobility devices. That number nearly will double to 45 percent by 2010.