Telindus refers to the offering as a suite of tools, in that each customer environment will be different and thus will require a degree of customization for the service to be enabled. Paul Taggar, client director for the company in the UK, cited the fact that it may need to work with an on-site PBX, in which case it will need to be at least a hybrid if not a pure IP PBX, though that functionality can also be entirely hosted, i.e. a virtual PBX service.
Equally, the universe of devices supported will vary from customer to customer. In some cases it may be all smart phones or PDAs, while others may entail softphones on laptops, for instance. The one common denominator, he went on, is that it’s a managed service offer in which we run the network infrastructure.
FMC is about moving traffic from mobile phones onto fixed networks to reduce cost and, at the same time, integrate them with a company’s wireline infrastructure, including its PBX. There are a couple of ways to do this, the one that has gained most attention over the last couple of years being the use of dual-mode cellular and WiFi phones, with the ability for calls to go over the WLAN when the user is in the office or on campus, but also to transfer between the two radio networks for call continuity.
In the UK in particular, there is also the alternative of in-building mobile networking via picocells deployed on GSM spectrum that was licensed last year specifically for this purpose. There are 12 license holders, but the most active of these to data has been comms software developer Teleware Group Plc, which last October launched a subsidiary called Private Mobile Networks (PMN) to develop this business.
PMN does not operate services directly but rather allows other companies to do so on its spectrum, using its Private Mobile eXchange technology in the core, picocell base stations from UK manufacturer IP.access Ltd and special SIM cards to access both the PMN and regular GSM networks. Of course, calls made on the private network are still going over GSM, but the pricing can be differentiated from wide-area GSM as a means of offering the cost savings of FMC.
Teleware marketing director Lesley Hansen said Telindus already has a relationship with her company to resell and integrate its comms software and is in the process of certification to become a PMN partner too.
Meanwhile on the WiFi side, Telindus will offer FMC infrastructure from DiVitas Networks, which consists of a Mobile Convergence Appliance in a corporate network and Mobile Convergence Clients on handsets.
Taggar said Telindus will offer its Collaborative Working Solutions portfolio to customers in both capex and opex pricing models, whereby they can either buy the infrastructure they need from Telindus, provide their own handsets, and it will run the network, or Telindus will own all the infrastructure barring the phones.
