A3 — Business Hosted VoIP

Anytime, Anywhere, Any Device

By Glen Gaillard, Pingtone Communications

Fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) describes integrated connectivity between fixed and wireless telecommunication networks.

How does this technology apply to the business environment? The goal of FMC is to provide business users with one phone number for business calls, while being able to access applications in a variety of ways, via a variety of networks.

The technology enables all facets of business communications to effectively take place over a multitude of device types, regardless of location. With more employees working away from the office, it’s become increasingly difficult for customers and colleagues to reach the remote workforce given the different devices and numbers – mobile, office, home – they may be using.

In such a disjointed environment, a solution is needed to make communication as seamless as possible – whether an employee is working from office, road or home.

Enterprise businesses and federal government agencies are evaluating ways to empower their workforces to be mobile while maintaining professional presence. Many government entities are mandated to adopt at least one cloud-based service migration, which many times include a telephony component. As the government upgrades legacy applications and phone systems, the opportunity to take advantage of FMC and A3 is more apparent than ever.

Professional presence is more critical than ever as employee turnover during difficult economic times has created the prospect of communication with business partners ending abruptly because communication has been with personal home and cell phones rather than at corporate-issued numbers.

With the advent of mobile phones and increased prevalence of smartphones, businesses are realizing the importance of maintaining a professional appearance through standardized corporate voice messages and tracking workforce phone usage/productivity, all possible now that all devices can be converged onto a corporate platform.

Given the high entry costs of premises-based FMC equipment and complexities of integrating it with the end-users’ PBX, hosted VoIP solutions are providing an interesting dynamic to reduce barriers. Hosted solutions have taken off as more companies adopt cloud-based services for IT infrastructure, which today is including VoIP and the adjoining FMC components.

"Anywhere" telephony solutions provide a native fixed convergence that lets end-users designate a single phone number for all incoming/outgoing calls, regardless of which phone they are using — mobile, office PBX, home, etc.

Calls to a single number ring all phones and the user is free to answer on any device. Once a call is active on the single number, the user is free to pick up any other device and continue the conversation uninterrupted. For example, if you’re on a conference call but need to leave the office for your child’s soccer game – you can actually move the call to mobile without interruption.

Defining Fixed Mobile Convergence
There are three aspects to this convergence: the networks, the device and the applications. At the network level, much of the convergence is driven by the build-out of IP networks, which enables the unification of multiple services on a common platform. Inside the enterprise, networks are largely IP-based, relying on Ethernet and wireless LAN technologies.

At the device layer, our anytime, anywhere world demands ubiquitous connectivity and device manufacturers are heeding that desire with innovation. In terms of network access, manufacturers continue to incorporate expanded capabilities with multiple wired and wireless connectivity options. As an example, increasingly mobile phones and smartphones come with wireless LAN connectivity and mobile data packages. In addition, manufacturers are responding to the convergence in applications by delivering powerful processing and display capabilities.

Collaborative applications are on the rise, in particular. For instance, simple instant messaging applications have evolved to incorporate image sharing as well as real-time voice and video sessions.

Benefits to the Enterprise
The workforce is increasingly mobile, now verging on 40 percent of the total population worldwide, according to analyst firm IDC. Employees are mobile in a variety of locations – within the business but away from their desks, and outside the office at client and partner sites, hotels, airports and at home. In all locations, the network and the device may vary based on environment. Making applications context-aware of the location, network type and even device type will improve user experience.

The most widely used mobile application today is voice telephony. And with more employees relying on cell phones as a primary voice tool, the ability for the enterprise to have some control over use, for both regulatory compliance – including HIPAA, Sarbanes Oxley and Basel II – and cost reasons is a good place to start. From a user perspective, the need to simplify communications in a world of multiple devices and voice mailboxes is increasingly important. Users want to have the same contact list on the desktop and on the mobile phone, without having to enter or remember to sync them. They also want common desktop phone capabilities, such as four-digit dialing.

Single-Number Reach
One of the largest challenges for both mobile employee and business is responding to customers, colleagues and partners. Often, the people who respond quickest win the business, and with many employees away from desks much of the day, missing a call can have a measurable negative impact on profitability. Single-number reach solutions address the problem by enabling calls to the business line to be redirected to one or more additional phones. These might be mobile phones, home office phones or remote office phones and the feature provides a single business number for the caller and increases enterprise control. If the employee leaves, customers are calling the business, not the employee's personal phone.

Single-number solutions may also have a desirable feature of enabling single-button transfer from employee desk phone to any mobile phone, whether it's a standard, smart or dual-mode phone. During an extended conversation, the employee may need to leave the office. However, using the mobile phone is undesirable from both comfort and minute-usage perspectives. With single-button transfer, the user can apply desk-set speaker phone capabilities when in the office and transition the call to cell phone upon leaving.

Single-Number Reach with Single-Number Voicemail
Many businesses want to go a step further by creating a single voice mailbox that minimizes complexity. Instead of employees managing multiple mailboxes with different numbers and passwords – for both a business desktop phone and mobile phone – more advanced single-number reach solutions incorporate ability to have a single voice mailbox. Unanswered calls to alternate phone lines – home office, mobile and remote office – are directed to a single business voicemail system, so all messages can be picked up in one place.

Summary
With an anywhere cloud-based hosted solution, services can be easily delivered via FMC services across an end-users’ desk phone, home phone, mobile phone and soft client. This seamless communications portability is invaluable for mobility-critical businesses, while enabling workforces to be effective remotely and provide a professional presence.

About the Author
Glen Gaillard, VP of network engineering for Pingtone, has 21 years of telecommunications engineering experience. He began his career at Cable & Wireless with satellite earth station provisioning and maintenance operations and occupied management positions in the United States and United Kingdom. He was senior manager of IP data line services, North America, upon his departure for executive management positions with Network Access Solutions and Covad Communications – publicly traded, nationwide broadband service providers – where he was responsible for network operations and technical assistance centers. At Covad, he was the technical leader responsible for development of the business VoIP product and technical assistance teams. His engineering education includes three years of advanced study at Telecommunications College (Penzance, UK) with multiple certifications from Cisco Systems, Nortel (DMS 250 and 300), Alcatel, Sylantro, Broadsoft and Genband.