The wireless industry is in for a big change as landline and wireless networks converge. IMS, or the IP Multimedia Subsystem, is the enabling force behind this change.

Moving forward, businesses will need to consider their carrier’s ability to support IP Convergence across landline and wireless networks. Without a carrier-provided IMS-enabled convergence offering, the deployment of popular unified communications services will force companies to invest greatly in their landline infrastructure. When a business decides to integrate mobile devices into their enterprise voice network, it requires upgrades to both PBX and landline network capacity.

IMS-enabled wireless carriers who can communicate via SIP with their corporate clients offer a great advantage over their competitors. SIP, or Session Initiation Protocol, is used for routing real time IP services, such as VoIP. Wireless carriers who have deployed IMS can communicate with their customers’ IP PBX. By exchanging routing and signaling data, the carrier can switch the calls for their business customer without taxing the landline voice network or PBX resources. All that is required is an 8KB signaling path instead of two (2) PBX ports, in some cases, and 100KB+ of bandwidth for each call the corporate PBX would otherwise have to make.

In addition to offloading their customers’ networks, carriers with IMS can present a single corporate phone number or extension in place of the actual mobile number, making the “one number” for all devices seamless. Business end-customers would only see the mobile employee’s corporate DID when that employee places a call from their cell phone or PDA. It is important to note that mobile numbers do not have to be SIP-enabled if the same wireless carrier provides the MPLS circuit to the business.

The increase in accessibility and productivity is driving companies to a unified communications platform. A carrier’s ability to offload all of the traffic this would generate and provide routing intelligence as part of their wireless offering will likely be worth a lot more than an additional $50 handset discount.

For more information about fixed mobile convergence and implementing a network worthy of the next generation of communications services and applications, feel free to contact us.

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