Fixed-Mobile Convergence (FMC)

Fixed-Mobile Convergence (FMC) is a technology trend impacting almost all communications and information industries, promising great changes to the way we as customers consume communications services – anytime, anywhere, any device. It is comprised of four key components – service, terminal, network, and industry convergence – all of which are interrelated and critical to the success of the others.

Services in an FMC environment will deliver ubiquitous, personalized services across multiple domains. FMC will require the introduction and integration of a variety of key technology enablers. These include:

• SIP
• Voice over IP (VoIP)
• IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) (including VCC, ICS and network selection)
• Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA)
• Fixed & Wireless Broadband
• UMTS/HSPA

The broader and most encompassing definition of FMC is that it has the potential to become a “mega-trend” – it involves many industries, many companies, and many technologies, and touches almost all end-users. It is now clear that both the industry and technology are able to provide a multitude of differentiated and integrated converged services using a multitude of converged devices over a multitude of converged networks. FMC is driven by end-user needs as well as the operational efficiencies created by network modernization, the unification of core networks and multiple access synergies.

Overall, FMC should be seamless to the end-user and it must involve personalization: my services delivered to my device using whatever access network is appropriate. FMC involves a unified core network and multi-radio terminals as well as other terminal devices such as PCs and a common multi-access aware service delivery platform. However, success or failure will be determined not by networking technology, but by user acceptance.

Additional information

Q&A

Fixed-Mobile Convergence: Understanding the Marriage of Wireless and Wireline Technologies   (3G Americas white paper, July 2007. PDF - 4MB)