BT launching enterprise cellular-only FMC trial

“With dual-mode, you have to build a private network,” Plahte said. “We don’t want to add to their infrastructure costs when they deploy FMC. … In an enterprise, you could replace up to 70% to 80% of the desk-top phones—fully replace them, not just augment them.”

FMC services have been slow to gain traction at BT Global Service, in part due to dual-mode technology and business-case hurdles, said Ovum principle analyst Pauline Trotter.

“We have long felt that single-mode solutions have been somewhat neglected, despite (or perhaps even because of) their relative simplicity of deployment,” Trotter wrote in an analysis note today. “Even those vendors that have offerings in this area seem to have been half-hearted about marketing them, almost as if they were waiting until ‘full’ converged products based on dual-mode were available. This is a shame. Single-mode solutions have the potential to solve many of the problems that FMC is designed to address, without some of the technical heartache that dual-mode solutions can bring.”

The industry embraced dual-mode first because such technologies came paired with supposed cost savings on on-permise calls as voice traffic was offloaded onto the enterprise’s LAN, but Trotter said those savings largely have failed to materialize. The cost of building a WLAN network or adding capacity necessary to support voice calls has canceled out many of those savings, and the falling price of voice minutes has undermined the cost-savings argument, she said.

One trend that eventually may completely negate the benefits of dual-mode FMC is the development of the enterprise femtocell.  Companies like AirWalk Communications have developed enterprise-class femtocells that integrate with the office PBX, while Kineto’s new gateway supports business femto clusters powered by the same unlicensed mobile access (UMA) protocols that drive BT’s Fusion consumer FMC service.

Both setups essentially create private cellular networks within the enterprise. While there is no femto component in OnRelay’s trial with BT, Plahte said MBX will support them. He pointed out that building an enterprise femto network amounts to building a new enterprise network, something customers are trying to avoid. Meanwhile, OnRelay’s platform isn’t dependent on a dedicated enterprise network. Rather it extends PBX functions across the entire wide-area mobile network and will on other operators’ networks internationally as long as a roaming agreement and data connection are in place, Plahte said.

“In Europe the 3G network buildout has made indoor coverage prevalent, so there is little need to add femtocells to an enterprise network,” Plahte said. In the US, where there are still large gaps in indoor coverage, femtocells may be a more viable option, Plahte said, but a carrier could also deploy picocells to target specific enterprises. A picocell may be more expensive, but the cost is small when compared to the cost of deploying an enterprise wide femto, WLAN or wireline PBX network, Plahte said. “It’s not that big of a deal for an operator to build capacity for 30,000 to 40,000 customers in the macro network,” Plahte said. “On the other hand, it is very expensive for an enterprise to add capacity for 30,000 to 40,000 new extensions.”