Breadcrumbs to progress on fixed mobile convergence

Recent announcements from AT&T, Qwest, Verizon, and Cablevision indicate progress in the converged enterprise

VoIP, unified messaging, products and services

Today we turn our attention to the world of wireless with recent announcements from AT&T, Qwest, Verizon, and Cablevision. Though each announcement has a slightly different topic, we think they collectively point toward progress in the converged enterprise and consumer-centric applications and content across fixed and mobile networks.

In the first announcement, Verizon announced plans to support BlackBerry® Mobile Voice System (MVS) from Research in Motion. Verizon made the announcement last week at the Wireless Enterprise Symposium 2009 in Orlando. In June 2007, Verizon first introduced a fixed mobile convergence (FMC) service using BlackBerry MVS with Verizon PBX Mobile Extension. Working together, BlackBerry MVS and Verizon’s PBX Mobile Extension enable mobile workers to move seamlessly between cell phones and desk phones while maintaining office phone features.

In other news, AT&T also announced last week that it has added a new “Send to Mobile” feature to att.net, making it easier for customers to push content from the Internet to AT&T mobile devices. According to the company, “AT&T’s wireless customers can register for a free att.net account, which includes e-mail with unlimited storage. From that account, they can push links to content like news, weather, sports and entertainment to supported mobile devices.” We note that while Internet access is nothing new to mobile devices, making it easier for customers to push content will facilitate content and application sharing between “three screens.”

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Today we turn our attention to the world of wireless with recent announcements from AT&T, Qwest, Verizon, and Cablevision. Though each announcement has a slightly different topic, we think they collectively point toward progress in the converged enterprise and consumer-centric applications and content across fixed and mobile networks.

In the first announcement, Verizon announced plans to support BlackBerry® Mobile Voice System (MVS) from Research in Motion. Verizon made the announcement last week at the Wireless Enterprise Symposium 2009 in Orlando. In June 2007, Verizon first introduced a fixed mobile convergence (FMC) service using BlackBerry MVS with Verizon PBX Mobile Extension. Working together, BlackBerry MVS and Verizon’s PBX Mobile Extension enable mobile workers to move seamlessly between cell phones and desk phones while maintaining office phone features.

In other news, AT&T also announced last week that it has added a new “Send to Mobile” feature to att.net, making it easier for customers to push content from the Internet to AT&T mobile devices. According to the company, “AT&T’s wireless customers can register for a free att.net account, which includes e-mail with unlimited storage. From that account, they can push links to content like news, weather, sports and entertainment to supported mobile devices.” We note that while Internet access is nothing new to mobile devices, making it easier for customers to push content will facilitate content and application sharing between “three screens.”

Finally, we turn to two announcements on Wi-Fi access. Qwest now has an agreement with AT&T to provide free hot spot access to Qwest broadband customers at over 17,000 AT&T access points. Cablevision (which also offers a free Wi-Fi service in the New York area to Cablevision broadband subscribers) also announced it has increased its downstream hot spot access speed to 3Mbps. So now, Cablevision, Qwest, and AT&T all offer their wireline broadband subscribers free Wi-Fi access.

Our observation on this value-added Wi-Fi feature: While the service may initially be used as an incentive to attract or keep existing wireline broadband subscribers, we also think it is a great introduction to customers that just might get them “hooked” on high-speed mobile Internet access. For mobile phone users who have ever downloaded (for example) MapQuest directions and a map on their mobile phone, the comparative speed of Wi-Fi vs. GPRS or Edge for the mobile applications is a dream come true. We have maintained that one roadblock to FMC is the limited data download speeds to mobile devices. Perhaps companies including AT&T, Qwest, and Cablevision can leverage a hot spot network to overcome this limited-bandwidth objection until 4G broadband becomes ubiquitous.

Read more about voip & convergence in Network World's VoIP & Convergence section.

Steve Taylor is president of Distributed Networking Associates and publisher/editor-in-chief of Webtorials. Larry Hettick is a principal analyst at Current Analysis.