Vodafone backs convergence with Mobile Solutions for Business

Service offers fixed-line and mobile telephony and broadband

Vodafone has introduced a fixed-mobile convergence system for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), but has fallen short of other operators by not deploying IP-based services for its business customers.

The Mobile Solutions for Business service combines fixed-line and mobile telephony with broadband, and gives firms a unified communications bill for mobile, home and office workers.

Customers can choose either fixed-line telephone or mobile cellular services for voice, combined with either DSL or 3G for broadband. Vodafone said it already has “several thousand” fixed telephone line customers, mostly acquired when it paid an estimated £155m for Project Telecom in 2003, one of Vodafone’s own airtime resellers, which also supplied fixed-communication services through an agreement with Energis.

For now, it is hard to see how the Mobile Solutions for Business service will look or feel any different to customers but Vodafone promises to develop a single monthly tariff encompassing all three types of connectivity in the future, which may attract a discount.

“At the moment it will still have different components of the bill; the broadband, the mobile and the fixed line charges,” said Vodafone UK enterprise marketing manager Elaine Roberts. “But going forward we are looking at how to reduce the customer total cost of ownership [TCO], based on what the customer is spending with us already and by looking at where the customer has to invest in their own equipment rather than it being hosted by Vodafone.”