I have a great family. They gave me an iPhone for my birthday recently and it lives up to the hype. It does the best job at blending computing and telephony in a mobile device. The networking aspect of the iPhone is impressive. It’s a dual mode phone supporting AT&T’s edge network and wifi. Walking or driving around you enter and leave hot spots while nearly always being connected to the AT&T wireless network. You find yourself looking for a hot spot to boost your bandwidth to download content or connect back into the office. I process data more than voice so dual mode offers me a way to get data faster. The iPhone does a great job at dual mode for data, but does nothing for voice. Dual mode operation for voice provides continuity of a voice call while traveling in between WLANs and cellular networks taking advantage of lower cost communications. Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) leverages dual mode end-points by providing WLAN/Cellular mobility plus dual ringing where an enterprise’s IP telephony system can ring the executive’s multiple extensions simultaneously in an effort to make the executive more accessible. This enables executives to have a single telephone number and voicemail box too, simplifying voice message management. Vendors approach dual mode based upon their expertise. The computer and data companies approach it from a data perspective while telephony firms approach it from a voice perspective. Both should approach dual mode from a seamless mobile collaboration perspective blending both voice and data dual mode operation to deliver the best experience to the executive.

There is an industry trend to integrate unified networks (WLANs + wired LANs) and unified communications to improve reach and business responsiveness. Industry insiders describe the extending of IP telephony features to mobile end-points such as cell phones, PDAs and smart phones with the term “fixed mobile convergence”. The level of integration associated with fixed mobile convergence is usually limited to providing users with a single v-mail box and ringing either their mobile or desktop phone when an inbound call is placed. The linking of unified networking and unified communications offers a richer set of business experiences such as collaboration, calendar syncing, data application access, paging, push to talk, group-based dialing, and many more. In short, unified networks and communications is a platform which provides geographic and networking independence to application and communication access. As business process goes mobile so too will IT and in the process enable new revenue generation and customer experience options which business leaders are exploiting.

Beyond FMC

First Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) is an awful term, used only by vendors, service providers and analysts; it is not relevant to enterprises. What enterprises are trying to do is provide good collaboration and access to data applications and employees everywhere. Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) speaks to the voice aspects of employee, customer, partner or supplier voice communications. The vendor community needs to start thinking of mobility from a Seamless Mobile Collaboration (SMC) perspective as this is the end goal which business and IT leaders are interested in deploying. Yes, SMC enables employees to work from a remote site, have a single voice mailbox and a single phone number, but this is just a starting point. The vision for mobility is one that is enabling a Seamless Mobile Collaboration experience across any access network, linking executives into business communication systems and their business network. So where is the increased value that’s being offered to business and IT leaders as they start to implement an SMC strategy?

Seamless Mobile Collaboration Promises

The value that SMC offers to business is wide spread. SMC turns into increased productivity, which translates into an improved bottom line. Ultimately SMC delivers efficiency by allowing people to connect to their colleagues, partners, customers and suppliers in a more simplistic and user friendly way as SMC eliminates the concern and complexity of the access network. In other words, an executive does not need to be concerned if the person they are reaching is on a cell, WLAN, or wired LAN access network. You just communicate, either via voice or any data communication modality such as email, IM, conferencing, etc. Also message management is easier too as executives do not need to manage the complexity and inconvenience of multiple voice mail systems, multiple phone numbers, checking multiple voice mailboxes and in the process missing calls while you’re trying to retrieve old ones.

For IT leaders, SMC promises reduced cost of operations thanks to the efficiency of managing a single network and communication system. While the industry has made great strides to converge all their networks under Ethernet and IP on the network side and to add IP telephony to this converged network, it still struggles to integrate WLANs and VoWLAN to this converged network. In addition cellular networks are separate physical and logical entities today too, with email and at times IM being the only common service between cellular and corporate networks. Most IT organizations are managing office communications systems with wired phones, while they manage mobile systems separately. In the future SMC offers a strategy to combine these networks under one management platform and one set of security policies while providing common services. While this level of consolidation has always proved to reduce operational cost over time, more importantly SMC will add material value back into the organization by allowing people to perform their workflow independent of physical location, thus creating business value.

Seamless Mobile Collaboration In Retail

For example, in retail there are different employee profiles that require different types of SMC. Retail associates who assist customers as they enter a store looking for a product need an SMC solution that gives them the freedom to roam within their campus or retail store environment. A VoWLAN (Voice over WLAN) solution is ideal as this provides them roaming mobility freedom. VoWLAN can be combined with a push to talk capability so that the associate can access a group of associates and the manager on duty to address a customer’s question. In addition a customer may be calling from home with a question, which can be routed to an associate on the retail floor to check inventory or address a question. A regional or branch manager whose work requires them to be primarily mobile between multiple stores has a different set of mobility requirements. This manager requires a different type of solution, one that’s based on their cell phone, since a large percentage of their time is spent traveling between stores. They’re probably going to have a fixed office phone too, as they are part of the executive management chain.

Solutions such as Cisco Unified Mobility or Cisco Mobile Communicator, Avaya’s extension to cellular, Siemens’ HiPath MobileConnect, DiVitas Networks, Tango Networks, Kineto Wireless, NewStep Networks, Agito Networks, Ascendent acquired by RIM, all forward calls from office to cell phone allowing users to have a SMC experience, whether they’re inside a store or traveling in between them. In short there are different SMC scenarios based upon job type and requirements, but one thing is for sure: every person working in the global economy will benefit from some form of SMC. So how do business and IT leaders start moving towards a SMC vision? How should they begin the process in determining which solutions they should consider?

Seamless Mobile Collaboration: How To Get Started

There are three simple steps that you as business and IT leaders can take to begin this process toward SMC:

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1. The first step is starting to profile mobile workers within your organization. As mentioned in the above example, some firms have mobile workers who stay within a building or cluster of buildings, while other mobile workers travel outside of their building as well as being mobile inside. Profiling mobile workers is a first key step.
2. The second step builds upon the mobile profiles by adding job requirements and end-point device needs. Again some may require a standard cell phone, others may require a more enhanced device because they also have the requirement for mobile email or other mobile applications, and still others may need ruggedized devices for their job profile. Perhaps they work in a warehouse or in an outdoor environment where ruggedization is critical due to the device use.
3. The final step is analyzing mobile worker profiles and the different end-point device types needed to support their job and specific applications. Business and IT leaders should consider which business areas are most critical to improving customer responsiveness, competitiveness, productivity, etc. Think of the mobile profiles and key corporate objectives. What you will find is that one class of mobile workers will have the biggest impact on that business objective. This is where business and IT leaders should begin the process of enabling Seamless Mobile Collaboration.

Seamless Mobile Collaboration: It’s Not Complex

One topic that confuses many IT managers is that they believe to realize SMC value they must first deploy a Unified WLAN and Wired network, then add Unified Communications, and then extend Unified Communication to mobile end-points. In the retail example above, SMC was achieved with a mix of technologies such as IP, WLAN, VoWAN, legacy phone systems, etc. SMC can be delivered with a host of different technologies. SMC does not require a complete pervasive deployment of Unified Networking plus Unified Communications before you can start to get SMC benefits to your mobile end-points. It comes back to identifying business goals that can be achieved by equipping employees with mobile technologies to deliver value. In the retail environment increased customer service was the goal, which was achieved by deploying a WLAN and enabling VoWLAN capability which gave that business the best return as they were goaling to improve customer experience and responsiveness. While this is a good place to start for the retail stores, it doesn’t require that IT deploy that same solution in their corporate headquarters. It comes back to analyzing business processes and objectives first and the SMC solution will follow. With the first SMC project completed it will surely build and extend to processes, divisions and/or organization once the business experiences the value created.

With all of that said, once the iPhone is equipped with FMC it will deliver the best SMC as moving between voice and data wireless networks will be seamless. And I can thank my family for giving me not only a great birthday gift but good fodder for this Lippis Report.

Posted 13 August 2007 at 4:36 pm under Lippis Report, Unified Communications & Comm.-Enabled Business, Enterprise Mobility. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.