Free UMA Service For Enterprises

As reported by Xchange magazine just a few minutes ago, T-Mobile is making some significant changes to its enterprise service offer.

First, enterprises with 100 or more lines of service from T-Mobile can receive free nationwide Wi-Fi calling with UMA-enabled Blackberries. No more $10/month for service.

In addition, T-Mobile is adding Research In Motion’s MVS product to its portfolio. MVS extends the PBX desk phone to Blackberries.

This is a significant step towards FMS in the enterprise. Employees can get a UMA-enabled Blackberry and receive free unlimited calling in North America, along with email service and potentially MVS. Sit at your desk, roam the halls, work from home, it's free calling when attached to Wi-Fi. Very compelling.

I'm sure the Yankee Group, who recently published a story about their move to enteprise UMA, is happy to hear about this development.

It looks like Enteprise UMA is picking up.

Desk phones the way of the Dodo?

A recent post by Ben Patterson, the self-proclaimed “Gadget Hound” writing for Yahoo Tech, posited that the desk phone may be going the way of the dodo bird. To reinforce is point, Ben refers to an article from industry analyst firm Gartner suggesting that enterprises will be supporting more mobile phones than desk phones in 2011.

Interestingly, one of the concerns Ben had about this transition, the ability to get coverage in the office, is addressed with UMA. And the phones Ben referred to for such a service? RIM Blackberries.

At UMA Today, we don’t believe the desk phone will go the way of the dodo (ie, completely disappear off the face of the earth).

We believe the desk phone will be relegated to a position in the office hierarchy similar to a fax machine. It’s still there, it’s still plugged in and ready for use, but employees just don’t use it much at all anymore.

Apples and Oranges

I do appreciate the quote in Strategy Analytic’s press release about their latest research on the Enterprise FMC Market. They said “UMA is here to stay”.

But after reading the release about the report, I’m left feeling they are comparing apples and oranges.

"SIP-based services will initially be implemented by large multinationals with the capacity to carry voice traffic on their private MPLS network. Consequently, SIP-based revenues will overtake UMA revenues toward the end of the forecast period. Moreover, Microsoft's UC (Unified Communications) solution, is also likely to see positive uptake as a business solution," commented Andrew Brown, Director for Wireless Enterprise Strategies.

There’s no doubt that enterprises will use SIP for IP telephony. IP-PBXs all run SIP. One of the fundamental advantages is that the calls can be carried between PBXs over the enterprise’s own private networks. But that’s an enterprise solution.

UMA is a technology for mobile operators, not enterprises. Certainly prosumers will use UMA in the enterprise, but IT departments can’t ‘deploy UMA’. And UMA was not designed to be carried through a private network.

So comparing UMA revenues with SIP revenues for Enterprise FMC doesn’t seem to be comparing like services.

There is no doubt that UMA will have an impact on the enterprise market, but it will be an FMS impact, migrating minutes from the fixed network/PBX to the mobile network.

FMC Fading?... Depends on the market

Last week Telecoms.com posted an article announcing that the “FMC hype is fading”. What they didn’t clarify in the title is that Yankee Group analyst Brian Kotlyar, who made the comment, was talking specifically about the enterprise.

For the enterprise: I agree. The hype around enterprise FMC is fading fast. That’s because enterprises and enterprise solution vendors alike are realizing that what enterprises really want from an FMC solution isn’t a PBX client on the phone, what they really want is the mobile to work better and cost less.

For regular readers of the blog, you will recall that all successful dual-mode handset services have been targeted at consumers. There has been talk about dual-mode services for the enterprise, but they have always missed the mark.

I was at lunch with a colleague the other day who works for an ‘enterprise’ solution provider. Being suppliers of FMC solutions to different markets (Kineto to mobile operators, my colleague to enterprises), we were able to compare notes.

The premise of the enterprise solution is that the enterprise FMC application is overlaid on top of a normal mobile/GSM phone service. There appear to be three basic benefits.

When in the enterprise, calls that come into the PBX are routed over Wi-Fi/VoIP to the handset. Thus employees are ‘mobile’ in the office. Second, when out of the office, calls to the PBX number are routed to the mobile so the employee is ‘always available’. I’m not sure that’s a benefit just yet, I get a lot of calls overnight to my desk number that I really don’t want ringing in my house in the middle of the night. Third, users have a corporate phone book with four digit dialing in the office or out.

While there were several things about their enterprise solution that struck me, two things really stood out:

First, when my colleague is out of the office in GSM, and a call comes into his desk number, the enterprise FMC controller has to hairpin that call out to the GSM network to ‘find’ the employee. The impact on the enterprise is high. Now a call to a PBX extension takes TWO trunk lines, one for the inbound call, one for the outbound call. Not exactly a ‘cost savings’ just yet.

Second, I noticed his phone was using the EDGE network to update/synchronize data with the server in the enterprise. I asked if he needed to get an unlimited data package on the phone. Yes, of course, but he already had the data package because the Nokia e61 he used was for email as well.

Again, I’m not sure where the savings is if an enterprise FMC solution requires users to get all you can eat data packages to enable the service.

It is said that only 20-30% of employees are mobile and have devices/service plans paid for by the enterprise. This is because they tend to be expensive devices (Nokia e61) which require expensive mobile plans (all you can eat data).

I thought the ‘target’ of enterprise FMC services was the ‘other’ 70%, people who could benefit from mobility in/around the office if it was more cost effective. But if the cost of unwiring the ‘other half’ includes the same expensive devices with the same expensive data plans, plus the added expense of an enterprise FMC controller and more PBX trunk lines, I’m not sure where the cost savings is going to come from to make it more affordable.

Analyst house the Yankee Group said this week that even though the publicity surrounding FMC is being succeeded by more recent developments, the technology still has strong potential to shake up the communications market for enterprise voice and mobility. But uptake will only be driven by shifting the focus to FMC's features, rather than its potential for cutting costs.

Focus on features rather than cost? To me, that sounds like trying to make the 20-30% of employees already with mobile service more productive, rather than trying to unwire the ‘other half’.

What would be a good way to get low cost, high performance wireless service to enterprise workers? Wait a minute, doesn’t T-Mobile offer ‘unlimited calling over Wi-Fi’ for just $10/month? But the phones, they must be expensive and costly, right? Well, the Nokia and Samsung handsets are $50 with a two year commitment. There must be an expensive calling packet required, right? No, the HotSpot @Home service is available as an add-on to any $40/month calling package.

Hummm... it looks like there already is a way to un-wire the ‘other half’ of enterprise workers.