As a hugely growing market in the channel today, FMC is often the focus of many business issues. The deployment of workforce mobility solutions is at the forefront of business telecoms strategy planning. IPTEL Product Director, Martin Andrew, believes now is the time to address this head on & provide businesses with a feature rich, scalable, opensource cloud mobility solution, which is simple to integrate into an existing telephony infrastructure.
Mobile phone usage is essential to the modern business. However, in the past it has brought about problems, ranging from signal issues, multiple voice mailbox issues, important calls being missed and having to distribute a separate mobile phone number to customers wishing to contact you, as well as escalating costs over the lengthy contract period imposed as standard by the mobile operators.
Andrew states that IPTEL’s FMC solution uMobility can help resellers to overcome these client issues. Looking at typical telecom news over the past 12 months, two phrases have stood out when it comes to the topic of workforce Mobility; FMC (Fixed Mobile Convergence) and BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). Both have been issues in the UK channel for a while and IPTEL’s uMobility solution can effectively address these two key objectives, add value to the reseller proposition as well as enhance end user productivity and overall business efficiency.
uMobility as delivered by IPTEL enables company or personal (BYOD) mobile smartphones to fully integrate with Enterprise Phone Systems for both inbound and outbound calling. This differentiates IPTEL as Andrew explains that uMobility, “is not SIM dependant, not PBX dependant and works with any mobile operator.” The solution is completely opensource and does not require a change of number, handset or a change of SIM. At network level the solution works with any SIP and call provider and most phone system/hosted platforms. It gives the user a complete range of the features on their mobile that would normally be expected on their desk phone.
IPTEL stress the importance that the uMobility solution is truly an application that gives the user Single Number Reach (SNR). If a colleague calls the users DDI number or short dial number providing the users’ mobile is in GSM signal or has WIFI signal, the call will be received. Vice versa, the user can dial out from their Mobile Handset, displaying their desk phone number and the call will be billed via their landline carrier on the landline call tariff.
IPTEL’s solution works on WIFI and GSM, seamlessly moving between the two signal sites without dropping the call, which is a unique value add to the user experience. There is no longer a problem with poor mobile signal in office buildings; as uMobility will automatically select the stronger WiFi signal to enable inbound and outbound calling.
Industry focused studies show that within the business environment, mobile users tend to and prefer to make calls from their mobile phone which is why the issue has become more prevalent in the channel. With traditional call termination rates reducing partly due to regulatory legislation and the price competitive nature of business telecoms services, channel partners/resellers need to ensure ongoing revenue is secure and at the same time provide their client base with proven, beneficial, scalable, future proof business tools.
An additional important consideration for the channel is how to address the increasing popularity of BYOD in the business environment. For years we’ve accepted the fact that if you return a call with your smartphone, your business contact will then have your personal mobile phone number, IPTEL’s uMobility solves this problem by giving you the ability to manage two personalities with one device. Call your friends & family with your personal number routed out via SIM, (Vodafone or O2 contract for example), and call your client with your business extension number via the work telephone system and the associated extension number is displayed. IPTEL believes “This gives true mobility to individuals and lets them have access to all desk phone features at the same time, two profiles on one device”.