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Report: Three Fixed Mobile Convergence Services To Watch
TMCnet Contributing Editor
According to a new study by analyst firm Dittberner, three categories of Fixed Mobile Convergence services will be the most popular in the near future, potentially competing with “all mobile” products (Fixed mobile substitution).
Specifically, Dittberner likes services based on dual-mode terminals (3G and WLAN), set or programmable automatic call forwarding (“Follow-me”), and home-zone pricing schemes.
Dittberner addresses the various business and marketing issues pertaining to fixed-mobile convergence in this comprehensive study, which concludes that “FMC services are unlikely to generate any sizable incremental revenue particularly for full service carriers.”
For example, carriers advertise services based on dual-mode handsets as providing convenience to users (i.e. one phone, one number, one address book, one voice mail box, one bill, one point contact), but “remarkably also emphasize the cost benefits to clients because calls made and received via the home, or office WLAN will be billed at the fixed wireline tariff, which is usually lower than the mobile tariff.”
Speaking of full service carriers, given the merger of AT&T (News - Alert) and BellSouth (News - Alert), according to several industry analysts, “a key benefit to AT&T’s enterprise customers will come from the convergence of wired and wireless networks,” industry observer Ephraim Schwartz writes:
“As long as AT&T shares ownership of Cingular (News - Alert) with smaller rival BellSouth, it’s limited in the services it can offer, according to Frank Dzubeck, senior analyst at Communications Network Architects.”
Schwartz reports Dzubeck saying “they owned half of Cingular, but they couldn’t do anything with it. Now they have the flexibility to do all sorts of things with their biggest customers.”
Dr. Alain Thiney, vice president at Dittberner says that in his estimation, “revenues to be derived by full service carriers from converged fixed-mobile services will probably pale in comparison to fixed and mobile video services revenues for example.”
He added that the development of IP-based high value-added services delivered via fixed and mobile broadband access networks “will be the real revenue generators, as FMC provides added convenience for which users will not be willing to pay a premium.”
Large businesses can expect more bundled services, Schwartz thinks: “The hot acronym of the day is fixed mobile convergence. In other words, look for services that enable communication across a range of devices and connections.”
In fact, “the telecoms see their future profits in converged FMC services, whether the payload is voice, video, or data,” according to Stephane Teral, directing analyst at Infonetics Research. As Schwartz writes, “Dzubeck adds that eventually consolidated billing alone could save enterprises millions by reducing the number of times accounting departments need to touch bills.”
The Dittberner study concludes, FMC could provide integrated fixed-mobile carriers a significant competitive tool to maintain or increase their market share, helping customer retention, and even helping capture new mobile customers.
The report includes a comprehensive FMC revenue simulation model and several business cases illustrating the positive impact of FMC on revenues.
David Sims is contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles please visit David Sims' columnist page.
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