Fixed Mobile Convergence

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Fixed Mobile Convergence

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November 10, 2008

AT&T Buys Centennial

By Gary Kim, Contributing Editor


AT&T is buying Centennial Communications, adding 1.1 million subscribers to the 74.9 million already served by AT&T (News - Alert) Wireless.  

 
Verizon Wireless, which has 70.8 million customers, also will be adding 13 million Alltel Communications customers to its total. Up to a point, such acquisitions are justified by the value of filling in coverage holes and gaining additional scale. At another level, such acquisitions also are a reflection of how difficult it now is to add new customers organically.
 
AT&T is just about out of sizable acquisition targets, though. It probably couldn't make a play for T-Mobile, even if were for sale, for anti-trust reasons.
 
There are several sizable mobile providers left, but they use the CDMA air interface and therefore are incompatible with AT&T's air interface. Of the three networks, US Cellular, with 6.2 million subscribers, would seem to be the most-likely candidate for an eventual Verizon (News - Alert) acquisition move.
 
MetroPCS, with 4.8 million customers, and Cricket/Leap, with 3.5 million customers, operate in the credit-challenged, landline replacement and "value" market segments, and would not have the average revenue per user metrics Verizon would prefer.

Gary Kim (News - Alert) is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Gary's articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Stefania Viscusi


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Fixed Mobile Convergence

encompasses a wide range of mobile services that converge elements of fixed communications infrastructure to complement the core mobile service. In most cases fixed mobile convergence (FMC) services allow the user or the network to take advantage of higher speed, cheaper local unlicensed access networks in local environments for lower value, high volume transactions.
Collaborate On the Go with a BlackBerry Solution
FMC Resources
Mobile Social Networking: The New Ecosystem
Social networking and the next generation of handheld devices will improve business decision-making through efficient, unified communications and location awareness.
The Promise of Mobile Unified Communications
An exclusive Computerworld online survey offers insight into how companies can develop cost-effective strategies for implementing or improving mobile applications and foster an efficient workplace.
Who Needs a Desk Phone?
By Cliff Edwards
BusinessWeek
FMC White Papers
FMC Press Releases
FMC Convergence Showcase
BlackBerry® Mobile Voice System (BlackBerry MVS) BlackBerry® Mobile Voice System (BlackBerry MVS) converges office desk phones and BlackBerry® smartphones, allowing users to access standard enterprise voice features whether at their desks or on the go*. BlackBerry MVS encompasses BlackBerry® MVS Client software for BlackBerry smartphones, BlackBerry MVS Services of BlackBerry® Enterprise Server, and the Ascendent Voice Mobility Suite.

With BlackBerry MVS, BlackBerry smartphone users can access enterprise desk phone options directly from the menu interface of the BlackBerry phone application, while at the same time securely authenticating to the organization’s enterprise telephony system (PBX). BlackBerry MVS also gives IT administrators the control to set voice policies on the BlackBerry smartphone, so that inbound and outbound calls use the enterprise line. This allows for all mobile calls to be logged or recorded for compliance with regulatory or corporate standards.
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