Fixed Mobile Convergence
Overview
In less than a single generation, mobility has fundamentally redefined the telecommunications landscape. Personal and portable, the cell phone meets the lifestyle needs of many of us far better than the residential land line.
But cell phones are not likely to displace wireline telephony for business users any time soon. The convenience, quality and low cost of wireline telephony make it the obvious choice for office environments, service businesses and call centers. Mobility in business telephony is a complement to the wireline, not a substitute. And many business users are concerned about how best to use cell phones in combination with their desk phones to improve productivity and maximize the value of their internal and external communications.
Almost all of voice applications solutions available from Metaswitch include functions that address some of the key aspects of integrating wireless and wireline communications to the benefit of users. For example, the Metaswitch Hosted PBX solution includes Simultaneous Ring and Find Me Follow Me capabilities which allow an incoming call to be presented to both a desk phone and a mobile phone. Likewise, the Metaswitch Voicemail Evolution solution supports a unified mailbox that can take voice messages for both a land line and a mobile number, and that can send message waiting notifications by SMS to the cell phone. These functions are extremely useful, but some businesses are looking for a yet greater degree of convergence between their fixed and mobile telephony assets. That’s where the Metaswitch Fixed Mobile Convergence solution comes in.
The FMC solution is an enhanced form of hosted PBX that enables businesses to make and receive calls from their cell phones while in the office, using their normal Direct Inward Dialing numbers and without using minutes of air time. Leveraging the WiFi network in the office, users benefit from a stronger and more consistent signal while keeping costs down by bypassing the cellular network entirely. Each cell phone acts like an extension within the hosted PBX environment, and can be twinned with a VoIP desk phone for maximum convenience. And automatic hand-off to the cellular network ensures calls are not dropped when users roam outside the office environment.
The Metaswitch FMC solution combines the best aspects of hosted PBX and mobile telephony to benefit businesses by greatly improving the reachability of their employees while keeping costs tightly under control.
Features And Benefits
The Metaswitch FMC solution combines all of the advantages of the Metaswitch Hosted PBX solution with the following additional benefits:
- Cell phones are fully integrated into the private dial plan, and can make or take internal calls dialled using normal extension numbers – extending the ease of internal calling to mobile users.
- While in the office WiFi environment or any subscribed WiFi hot spot, mobile phones communicate over WiFi – benefitting from improved signal strength and coverage and avoiding the cost of cellular air time.
- Outbound calls from mobile phones present the user’s DID number or office main line number – enabling businesses to present consistent contact points at all times to the outside world.
- Enables users to present an “in office” appearance wherever they may be, increasing the proportion of inbound calls that connect to the right person.
- Extension numbers may be shared between cell phones and desk phones, so users can take advantage of all of the extra features of business sets while at their desks.
Solution Elements
The Fixed Mobile Convergence solution is based on the Metaswitch Hosted PBX solution, and makes use of all of the same solution elements with the addition of the uMobility server and client software. The uMobility server is co-located with the MetaSphere application servers, and communicates over WiFi or over the cellular network with the uMobility client software installed in the mobile phones. The uMobility client is compatible with a wide range of smartphones including the Apple iPhone, a variety of Windows Mobile phones, and Nokia phones running Symbian S60.