Riding the FMC hype cycle

Fixed/mobile convergence (FMC) is another one of telecom’s victims of the hype cycle. The technology gets promoted, marketed and heralded as game changing; the buzz wears off; the benefits emerge followed quickly by the return of a second wave of hype; reality sets in and the hype dies down yet again.

Brian Kotlyar, analyst with The Yankee Group, said that unlike many technologies, this is a cycle that FMC has gone through multiple times. At least in the United States enterprise space, no company has yet to save millions of dollars through FMC -- and if they tell you they are, take it with a large grain of salt, he said. Yankee Group’s large enterprise data indicates another year, another no show for the oft-hyped technology.

Considering that the noise around FMC is almost deafening, especially as the industry’s biggest trade show -- NXTComm08 -- grows closer, there is evidently some cause for the high expectations. It may just be a matter of looking outside the enterprise and, taking it a step further, outside the United States to see it in action.

Vodafone Italia, continuing in its streak of news making marked by the announcement of CEO Arun Sarin’s retirement and today’s report that it will bid on Italian broadband group Tiscali, yesterday released a new broadband switch/router for the home that would enable the real deal -- legitimate, effective and mass-deployable FMC. Developed with Huawei Technologies, the Station box will use ADSL2+ broadband connections to extend Wi-Fi or Ethernet throughout the home. Furthermore, it can deliver 3G connectivity to Vodafone’s wireless network via a USB connection -- meaning seamless switching between wireline broadband and wireless.

T-Mobile has done something similar to this effect, offering VoIP and wireless over broadband -- but the rollout was confined to Dallas and Seattle. Vodafone has been expanding its fixed-line broadband services across Europe all year as it gears up for FMC. Vodafone’s aggressive pursuit of the technology is what operators and vendors in the U.S. have been planning for, but without any real progress to speak of yet.

I imagine Vodafone will be the first of many operators to offer a box like this one. If it makes sense for an operator like T-Mobile, which lacks a wireline service, then the benefits for a company like AT&T, which could bundle its fixed and wireless offerings, are even greater. It might not be too late to make 2008 the year FMC finds its way out of the hype cycle and into both consumer’s homes and the enterprise, both in the U.S. and abroad.

Be sure to check out Telephony’s NXTComm08 Web site and the FMC One-Stop, for coverage of the trends, news announcements and other industry perspectives on FMC at NXTComm08.

Email me at sreedy@telephonyonline.com.