As enterprises recognize the strategic importance of enabling their remote and/or mobile workforce with mobility solutions, they need to determine how to best extend their existing wireline services into the mobile environment. Today, many service providers offer converged solutions that help businesses bring together their office-based telecom solution with their mobile environment.
W H I T E P AP E R S e a m l e s s C o m m u n i c a t i o n s : S i m p l i c i t y , E f f i c i e n c y , a n d T r a n s p a r e n c y A c h i e v e d T h r o u g h I n t e g r a t e d W i r e l i n e a n d W i r e l e s s S e r v i c e s Sponsored by: Sprint® Carrie MacGillivray March 2009 mo I D C O P I N I O N c.cdi. As enterprises recognize the strategic importance of enabling their remote and/or www mobile workforce with mobility solutions, they need to determine how to best extend their existing wireline services into the mobile environment. Today, many service 510 providers offer converged solutions that help businesses bring together their office-4.53 based telecom solution with their mobile environment. Enterprises must consider the 9.8 following key points when evaluating these types of solutions: 05.F ! Simplicity. Enterprises should examine the simplicity and availability of a 002 common dialing experience regardless of workspace device, be it a mobile 8.27 phone, desk phone, or video interface. They should also look for solutions that 8.8 have a single identity for calling and messaging yet are flexible enough for the 05. business' needs — in other words, solutions that provide a single point of P communication. ASU 1 ! 0 Efficiency. Over the past several years, enterprises have engaged in large 710 initiatives to migrate from legacy to IP networks. The opportunity to build a A converged solution actually leverages the IP network as it was meant to be M ,m leveraged — from any-to-any device or network — and facilitates the true ahg integration of distributed IP networking and leverages growing investment in nim mobility solutions. arF te ! Transparency. Globally, the mobile workforce is growing. Enterprises should ertS pick a solution that enables this segment to cut the cord if necessary while ne augmenting access options and allowing IT to control and enforce all of the epS aspects of mobility. Transparency provides the enterprise with the ability to 5 : deliver true mobility without rules — calls can start, end, or be transferred sretr seamlessly, regardless of the communication pattern or starting device. And, auq transparency also means that particular verticals can achieve regulatory dae compliance standards by including mobile phone calls in call detail records and H l ensuring all business voicemails are maintained to meet compliance abol requirements. G
I N T H I S W H I T E P AP E R
This IDC White Paper provides analysis of the convergence between wireline and wireless technologies and the opportunities this evolution offers to enterprises looking to reduce costs, minimize complexity, and improve worker productivity.
The document discusses the high-level trends around fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) as well as the opportunities and challenges that this market presents to enterprises. It also showcases the Sprint Wireless Integration solution and highlights some ways in which certain industries can benefit from the offering.
S I T U AT I O N O V E R V I E W F M C : W h a t I t I s a n d W h a t I t I s N o t
FMC has come and gone, and come back again, over the past several years. Frequently it is used to describe solutions that are bundled together rather than truly integrated. IDC defines the term enterprise fixed-mobile convergence as follows:
FMC solutions utilize elements of both fixed and wireless telecommunications infrastructure to offer a consistent feature set and a seamless communications experience to corporate end users. Examples include PBX extension services that allow users to access features typically associated with desk phones on their mobile phones or solutions that allow users to hand off voice calls from fixed-line phones to dual mode- or cellular-enabled mobile devices and vice versa.
There has been a lot of debate recently around unified communications (UC) versus FMC. IDC sees FMC as an enabler of UC solutions by extending presence and collaboration tools to a mobile device. While the origins of FMC are voice applications, FMC aptly appl... [download for more]
