IP Convergence: Beyond VoIP, Beyond Cost Savings

While Global Crossing's interest in FMC is certainly the applicability of these features to the enterprise, the feature sets are not exclusively of interest to the enterprise.

Some years ago, when I still had my mobile service with Qwest/US West I had a product called One Number. The one number service had two primary features: 1) shared voice mail box between my mobile and land line, and 2) automatic call forward. When my cell phone was turned on, calls automatically rang on it, and if there was no answer the call was fowarded to my land line. Ultimately I turned that feature off because it was annoying that the call rang on my mobile first and if I didn't want to take the call on my mobile I had to wait for the call to forward to the land line. Callers could detect the pause in dialing tones and would assume that the call was going to voice mail and would hang up before I could get it on the land line, so I would sometimes miss calls.

If I could have simultaneous ring as well as the ability to transfer calls to land lines, this would be a beneficial feature for me, as a consumer. Imagine you are in your car and take a call, but once you arrive at home you might prefer to transfer it to your home phone. Press a brief key sequence on your phone and keep talking. When your home phone rings you pick it up and bring it to your ear and keep talking/listening. Your cell phone is automatically disconnected and the caller on the other end has no clue that you just transfered the call. If you have a dual mode phone and WiFi in the house, the call may automatically switch from the cell network to the Internet, and if you are aware that you are no longer consuming "mobile minutes" you may not be concerned about switching to your land line (If you have one at all). I would classify both of these features as Fixed-Mobile Convgence, and believe that they are of interest to consumers.