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Further this efficient network
usage may actually reduce the
revenue received for access from
customers. Therefore, FMC must
be accompanied with a large stable
of new Advanced Services. But then
there is the other side of the
coin, not so loudly heralded: that
FMC must, in some way, uniquely
enable these advanced services.
New Services drive market
success
In this argument, efficiencies
lower cost basis for networks,
but revenue growth comes from providing
new services. Advanced Services
are also the drivers for IMS. But
even without IMS or FMC in wide
deployment, Advanced Services are
being introduced today - but they
are available only on the most
expensive handsets. The Fixed Mobile
Convergence Alliance [FMCA] is
a trade organization, a forum if
you will, of mostly converged operators,
devoted to laying out the business
drivers and requirements for FMC.
“Convergence applications
will typically be composed of server
side components that reside in
the converged operators’ networks,
and client-side components resident
in the terminals. These terminal-resident
applications may be provided as
embedded applications by the handset
vendor or be provided by third-party
developers who make use of capabilities
exposed by the handset vendor,
through the native operating system
APIs or virtual machine APIs… It
is expected that while there may
be a core set of applications that
are best provided by handset vendors
(since they may rely on tight integration
with the device hardware), the
market will be reliant on innovation
among third-party application developers
to stimulate new convergence opportunities.” FMCA
sees the following early converged
applications driving the marketplace:
-
Converged Contacts (one network
resident list available to
any device)
-
Personal Multimedia (sharing
home libraries on mobile sets)
-
Multimedia Call with Data
Sharing (SIP/IMS enabled calls)
-
Combinatorial Services (a
catch bag for using any network
for any service group)
-
Electronic Program Guide (phones
as anywhere remotes)
-
Automation Control and Monitoring
(mobile phone as home automation
console)
-
Convergent Call Control (another
incarnation of smart agent
secretaries)
-
Multimodal Services (mixed
voice, video and data sessions)
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“Who’s your
Daddy?” becomes
the first question any management
application must ask of a device – or
a service. |
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[FMCA Convergence Application
Scenarios]
We’re sure you can immediately
think of more.
Generally it is thought that
these services will require IMS
and the use of an HSS. But with
everything that is being piled
into the Home Subscriber Service,
will it be too stressed if deployed
as a centralized, network-owned
and controlled application? Other
technological solutions are possible
and may be much easier to deploy – provided
handsets support them. Enter
Microsoft’s call control
technology and their new announcement
of mobile services:
(Reuters, May 14, 2007) - Microsoft
Corp. introduced on Sunday phones,
headsets and other devices to
work with its software that aim
to replace the traditional office
phone and deliver e-mails, instant
messages and phone calls over
the Internet. Microsoft, the
world's largest software company,
said it worked with nine technology
manufacturers including Samsung
Electronics Co. Ltd. and NEC
Corp. to develop hardware to
work with its unified communications
strategy. Instead of one system
for phones and another for e-mails
and instant messaging, Microsoft
wants all communications to run
over Internet networks on its
Office Communicator program.
Microsoft forecasts that the
shift to Web-based phone systems
will gain momentum during the
next three years, eventually
generating billions of dollars
in new revenue for the company.
And never dismiss the Java and
the open source community. A
smart phone Linux is likely.
Even the FMCA folks agree “to
achieve commercial viability
the convergence service must
be capable of being deployed
as mobile Java-based application,
but this is problematic {for
phone vendors and service providers}” [FMCA
Convergence Application Scenarios]
Christian Borrman, for one,
is cautionary. The Mobile Director
of icom states on his blog:
“As phones and users get
smarter, and data requirements
soar way above the capacity or
even time available to transfer
this data over the mobile network,
fixed-mobile convergence is the
only way for a mobile operator
or virtual mobile operator to
be part of the whole value chain. … Enterprises
are still slow at buying into
mobile data, as any device that
can only connect over a mobile
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