Fixed mobile convergence may hold great promise for users who desire the ability to hand-off voice calls between the wireless network and WiFi networks via a dual-mode phone; however, an In-Stat report says the technology behind FMC has outpaced business end-user adoption. In-Stat forecasts that business FMC handset connections will increase from 5.8 million in 2009 to 31 million by 2013, while 19 percent of businesses with WiFi capability use voice over WiFi. In-Stat's forecast slightly contrasts an earlier report from ABI Research that argued FMC handset connections will increase from 6.3 million this year to more than 27 million by 2014. And, even though business users see the ability to seamlessly roam between wireline and wireless networks as the primary application, all FMC solutions are still nascent.

"A wide sweep of industry announcements trumpeting FMC capabilities have been made in 2009, however, our analysis shows only moderate increases in actual use, or planned use, of most applications," says David Lemelin, In-Stat analyst in a press release. "IT managers, service providers and integrators may have a good understanding of FMC's benefits, but until workers actually use its capabilities, the benefits will go unrealized."

For more:
- see the In-Stat release here

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Toshiba announced it will offer the uMobility fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) solution from Varaha Systems for its Strata CIX business VoIP system,.

The uMobility solution will provide Strata CIX users the ability to cut costs and provide mobility and UC functionality on their phone systems. Features include forwarding office phone calls to smartphones at any time/anywhere and access to the enterprise phone system via the same device, a seamless handoff of phone calls between VoIP over Wi-Fi and cellular networks, and a single office number and mailbox. In addition, uMobility also provides the ability for least-cost routing of calls.

Vahara's uMobility solution is compatible with a variety of smartphones, including Windows Mobile and Symbian devices; support for iPhone and Blackberry devices is expected later this year.

Toshiba isn't the only company getting into the FMC/mobile UC game. In March Avaya announced it was compatible with and would be selling Divitas' mobile UC solution.

For more:
- CentraDaily.com carries Toshiba's press release.

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HTC has announced the launch of the MAX 4G, the first dual-mode WiMax/GSM Windows Mobile device.
Undoubtedly the best specced WinMo device so far, calls between MAX 4Gs will automatically be routed over the WiMAX airwaves using VoIP.