back to article Merging your landline and mobile

For the last part of our mobile workshop we’re looking at mobile convergence. After our customary market observations, we’d love to hear your experiences with converged mobile and fixed voice and data. What exactly is convergence? The term convergence is used in many contexts. A rich vein of marketing spin surrounds a lot of …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    yac.com

    Hi

    I have been using yac.com for years - not quite seemless, but good, and it does not cost me anything. I have been able to keep the same number for my mobile irrespectiver of provider for many years, and send my calls to my office answering service when I go on holiday. If I go somewhere with no mobile coverage, I can send my calls to a landline.

    Geoff

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Convergance

    I thought convergance was supposed to be something along the lines of the merging of complex technologies from different ends of a spectrum - i hardly think phones merging into one device is convergance, although i'm sure the marketing folk like to think it is. It's pure and simple progress, let's not get too carried away please.

  3. Martin D

    'bout time too

    I think it's great that these technologies are finally coming together - although i do rather feel there's some way to go before it's as seemless as everybody seems to claim.

    It gives great benefits across the board. Managing multiple bills and networks and suppliers is becoming one of the biggest pains in my life - and we're only a 50 man company. I must spend a month a year on this and it really is laughable.

    The sooner we get people carrying one device for everything the better. Convergance can't happy fast enough for me.

  4. mjacobs

    VoIP

    I just don't understand how anybody can possibl think VoIP is business ready yet. It patently isn't. It's unreliable, it's got lag, the suppliers are all, frankly, rather low-rent.

    It's a nice idea, and it will undoubtedly get there. But there's a long way to go yet for a number of reasons, including those above, but also the whole net nutrality debate which threatens to knock the whole VoIP debate into a cocked hat. What happens if the VoIp vendors have to start laying their own networks - Doh!, yeh, costs go through the roof and you end up with a poor service costing you considerably more than fixed line services.

    It's all too early for this. It's good to see vendors dipping their size tens in the water and causing ripples of excitement. But that's where convergance should stay for now - on press releases and on the mighty el reg. It certainly doesn't belong in the office, not yet anyway.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's nice but....

    I agree entirely. The whole telco convergance game is a great concept but it has so many untried variables and unknowns that it's still a major gamble for a business. I work in a large financial institution and we trial almost everything that emerges to ensure we're on top of our game. Some of the VoIp products are very good and the merging of landlines/mobiles is nice. Technically we were pretty impressed and from and operational and logistics perspective it fitted a number of requirements - but we can't posibly invest in any of it right now (except for the odd branch office with exceptional circumstances). It's still got a lon way to go.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's gonna get messy

    Having been through the whole surge in pointles widgets to get users to send data across the mobile networks - in the hope that the operators can claw back some of their hard spent Billions on spectrum licenses - i really do think the last thing we need is yet another revolution in telephony.

    Sure, this lot is going to happen - mobiles becoming desktop bound, VoIp creeping in etc - but an organisation of any standing can not possibly take a leap into this murky pond. The convergance we're currently witnessing throws the doors wide open in the game - see Skype and a multitude of others muscling into the game.

    So, the overall issue is - yeh, convergance is good. But who do you trust to bet your business comms on?

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