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network, will remain just that;
a mobile device. To become the
main device of any enterprise user,
from an operator terminal to an
executive productivity tool, the
device must be able to communicate
in the office and home over local
access network before mass adoption
can occur.”
Further, he states “… the
two types of networks are so fundamentally
different, not only in their provision,
complexity and cost base, but also
in the way that they are perceived
and consumed that they will never
truly converge.” He continues, “the
amount of data that is transferred
between the mobile device and the
network becomes too large and too
diverse in its value to the customer,
for all this traffic to be transferred
purely over the mobile network.” Christian
is rightly worried that FMC might
lead to the erosion of the “mobile
premium”, the higher pricing
for mobile calls over land-based
services. This premium is what
makes mobile operators so (relatively)
profitable. So why would mobile
operators support introduction
of FMC?
And why would wired providers,
who hope that erosion to mobile
phones will reach a threshold and
stop? Complete conversion to only
mobile phones is in our opinion
unlikely. Resistance comes from
the user difficulty to get data/internet
service integration on the mobile
phone and the generally poorer
quality of mobile calling. Providing
advanced service products on a
mobile phone is complex and costly.
That said, many of the technological
enablers for FMC are present today.
SIP is likely to play a big role
in FMC. It was invented to enable
multi modal services. But all of
these enablers will require significant
technical evolution. Some examples
of important others include:
-
SIM cards will become universal
for all devices and will include
biometric authentication data
to establish the user and mobile
devices will include biometric
readers to verify the user
and to proxy it to the network
and external services.
-
Security services will need
to be in device to perform
true authentication of the
user and non repudiation of
the transaction. Basically
the phone will need to be a
fingerprint reader.
-
Data synchronization is going
to be a big technical problem
to overcome. Many devices and
many data sources will need
to remain in constant synchronization,
while still securing all data
that is sensitive. It is difficult
to imagine that anything other
than a network resident central
repository could provide this
synchronization. Certainly
the service providers want
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this and clearly Microsoft,
Yahoo, and Google also
are scrambling to own this
business. However we learned
with the original Groove
application that sources
and syncs of information
can maintain queue’s
and logs that allow complex
synchronizations from diverse
source services coming
and going. Coupled with
web services or Tuple Spaces,
this would solve the synchronization
problem without recourse
to a network controlled
central repository.
-
Metadata standards that
describe devices, capabilities
and services and their configuration,
is a real enabler for these
services. Again a standard
would make life so much simpler
and XML, XRI, WSDL and like
are providing static descriptions.
But eventually, to be distributed
and always available, an
advertising protocol and
service lookup market will
become necessary. Jini taught
us how to build these, but
the service provider and
device manufactures have
proven very resistant to
these ideas.
Clearly, FMC has some significant
problems to overcome before it
can be successful. It is complicated
on the wire-line side by the
sporadically poor performance
of VoIP calls and the lack of
service controllers that allow
true voice-data integration.
Despite Skype, Yahoo and Microsoft,
few computers dial and coordinate
wired calls. And then there are
homing ownership issues when
providing WiFi network access
to phones, the complications
of Municipal Wireless. For example,
if the operators allow convergent
devices to be released, will
municipalities co-opt services
and access when these are deployed?
National regulatory issues could
slow deployment of FMC. In many
countries around the world rules
were developed to separate fixed
and mobile operators as a way
of fostering competition. Truly
integrating these networks is
not something regulators see
as a good thing. And if (when?)
some regulators do see FMC as
fostering competition, and others
do not – the consumer
suffers and may just throw up
their hands and not buy FMC-based
services at all. The only break
to this logjam may be to outlaw
locking the FMC device to one
operator.
Owners of wireless access points
will become strong new players
in the ecosystem. Today companies
like Starbucks & McDonalds
partner around the world with
network providers to connect
their customers to the internet.
With FMC, the bandwidth requirements
will increase but so does the
value proposition. Companies
like McDonalds are bigger than
operators and may dictate the
business arrangements.
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