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A generation has grown up accepting that a telephone is not something in a fxed place, but a device you carry with you. For many workers, the mobile phone/smartphone has become the comms tool of choice inside as well as outside the offce.

This is refected in declining sales of conventional desk phones. Canalys, the independent research organisation, estimates that sales fell by 19% in 2009. Even allowing for the impact of the recession, a decline of this magnitude is indicative of signifcant change. One approach to greater mobile phone use within offces is ‘fxed mobile substitution’ (FMS), where the enterprise provides GSM cells within the organisation to connect with the mobile service provider’s network.When out of the offce, users connect to the service provider’s network in the usual way. This approach has a number of drawbacks: loss of management control; cost escalation; and loss of phone system functionality, including abbreviated extension dialling and presence. A better solution is to integrate mobile usage into the existing communications infrastructure, referred to as fxed mobile convergence (FMC), by installing an FMC client application on the phone. This will give smartphone users access to deskphone features, such as the ability to transfer calls, make conference calls and access a directory, whilst enabling the enterprise to monitor user ‘presence’ and manage costs through policy-based least cost routing (LCR) of calls.

The ‘one-number’ concept. An FMC one-number solution allows employees to be contactable on one phone number regardless of their location or the comms device they are using. This eliminates time wasted ringing round multiple locations and/or devices in search of a colleague. Simultaneous ringing means that the user’s desk phone and their mobile device ring when a call comes into their DDI

Presence. In an IP network environment, the network detects a user’s ‘presence’ when a terminal device (notebook, PDA, smart phone etc.) connects to the network. The IP environment determines where the user is, how willing the user is to accept communications, the terminal device’s media capabilities, and which devices have priority for connection attempts. Presence is an essential part of an FMC strategy because it allows staff to see the status of colleagues for call transfers, conference calls and so on, even when they are working remotely from each other. It is also an important management tool, because line managers can identify work patterns from presence information.

Number ownership. Business use of mobile devices is popular with employees, but for employers the issuing of private mobile phone numbers compromises professional branding and has security implications. If personal mobile numbers are given to business contacts, then those contacts (and phone logs and messaging history) are lost to the organisation when an employee leaves. An FMC solution with one-number contact enables the organisation to retain ownership of the number and its callers after an employee has left the organisation. It also provides a commonality of approach for callers, helping an organisation to present a consistent face to the outside world.

The growing use of personal devices within the workplace presents organisations with signifcant challenges.

But as Debbie Hage, Head of UK Marketing at Aastra Telecom (UK) explains, they are easily addressed by fxed-mobile convergence.

WiFi networks can connect seamlessly with the corporate wireless LAN (where it is voice-enabled). This gives employees the advantages of mobility when in the offce and employers the ability to route calls through the corporate network instead of incurring mobile operator costs. As many 3G networks have poor reception quality within buildings, seamless internal roaming can signifcantly improve connectivity and call quality. Should a staff member need to leave the building in mid call, the FMC solution provides seamless handover from the internal WiFi connection to the mobile cellular network.

External roaming. FMC also addresses the imperatives of cost control and reduction. The most signifcant cost savings can be made on mobile call charges through Mobile Least Cost Routing (MLRC) functions which determine the most cost-effcient method of routing each call.

Some suppliers of FMC solutions have opted for a manual approach to FMC implementation that requires the user to proactively select FMC options when switching betweenWiFi and mobile cellular networks. Aastra believes that an integrated FMC solution with automated functionality is preferable. If FMC processes are transparent, implementation is not dependent on an individual’s observance and enforcement policies by the organisation are not required. Moreover, an integrated and automated approach to FMC is absolutely necessary if planned cost-savings are to be optimised.

It is important to note that an automated solution can still be customised to suit individual user’s preferences. Options such as ‘fnd me/ follow me’, parallel ring, simultaneous ring and so on can be left to user choice. By combining optimum user freedom with optimum comms management and cost control, Aastra’s approach ensures that everybody wins!

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