Fixed Mobile Convergence is Coming of Age

David Byrd : Raven Call
David Byrd
David Byrd is the Founder and Chief Creative Officer for Raven Guru Marketing. Previously, he was the CMO and EVP of Sales for CloudRoute. Prior to CloudRoute, He was CMO at ANPI, CMO & EVP of Sales at Broadvox, VP of channels and Alliances for Telcordia and Director of eBusiness development with i2 Technologies.He has also held executive positions with Planet Hollywood Online, Hewlett-Packard, Tandem Computers, Sprint and Ericsson.
| Raven Guru Marketing http://www.ravenguru.com/

Fixed Mobile Convergence is Coming of Age

Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) is an odd name for a very beneficial capability. FMC is the ability to transfer calls seamlessly between a fixed or wireline phone and a wireless device. FMC has been around for nearly a decade and remains fairly unknown to the average person. However, this past weekend, FMC got a big boost. During Sunday’s NFL football games, Comcast presented a commercial depicting the use and benefit of FMC. The ad stars a businessman with too many conference calls and, thus, the inability to leave his office and go home. However, Comcast has the solution – the businessman can transfer the call from his desk phone to his cell phone. When he does so, he leaves the office and heads to his car to go home.

Whenever I see such ads that educate potential users of the capabilities of Unified Communications (UC), I applaud them. Sure, these are ANPI competitors, but they are performing a valuable service. They are generating awareness of the benefits of UC, which should translate into demand. This occurred when Vonage used television advertising to push VoIP as a way to decrease the cost of making residential long distance calls. This expanded to the idea of reducing phone costs for businesses of all sizes. The Vonage commercials provided a clear demonstration of the quality and reliability of using IP technology to make and receive telephone calls.

I have often stated that proponents of IP communications and UC are all members of the same growing ecosystem. It is through “coopetition,” with all of us presenting the benefits of the new technology in our own way, that we create demand and accelerate market penetration for all parties. The selection of FMC for an ad by Comcast is a curious, though, given that FMC is not viewed as a top 10 UC feature. The top features continue to be Presence, Instant Messaging and Unified Messaging (voice-to-email, fax-to-email and SMS). They may have selected the feature because it is simple and easily understood. Yet, I wonder if it will move the dial on the adoption of UC. It’s probably less about the feature and more about the ad.

Recently, in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, hosted communications advertising has been on the increase. I assume other metropolitan areas are experiencing similar spending. With just 26% of SMBs even aware of a hosted PBX (according to Parallels), clearly less than 10% understand the features associated with Hosted UC. Awareness will lead to understanding, which, in turn, will drive adoption. Go, Comcast!



Feedback for Fixed Mobile Convergence is Coming of Age

Leave a comment

Featured Events