Guide To Fixed Mobile Working

Mobile Extension

Traditionally enterprise cell phone users have had exceptional mobility but little or no participation in enterprise communication services. In fact, other than the ability to forward calls to a cell phone, enterprise phones and cell phones have been two separate islands of communications.

Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) unites these two domains to enable mobile workers to receive all of their calls regardless of their location or telephony device.

The way in which FMC applications work varies but a typical example would be: any telephone including a cell phone can be linked to the user’s desk phone and this will act as an extension of the corporate PBX, this is known as ‘twinning’.

The user is always accessible whether in the office, at home or on the road. The result is that users avoid missed calls and gain personal productivity. Employees can be more efficient and spend less time chasing voice mail and playing voice mail tag.

Users have one common set of utilities inside and outside of the office to establish everyday communications functions such as the ability to put a caller on hold or to transfer the call.

It has also become clear that the enterprise is increasingly concerned about the need to contain cell phone costs. Studies now suggest that almost 2/3s of an enterprise’s cell phone calls are made in the office or at home. FMC applications help to reduce these costs by enabling calls that were answered in the office or home on a cell phone to be handed back to the desk phone quickly and easily.