The latest Telecoms Market Matrix from Analysys Research shows that in the UK, where patterns of consumption are close to the European average, mobile voice usage should overtake fixed voice in the second quarter of 2008.
Dave Millett, operations director at VoIP provider Inclarity, comments: “It’s no surprise that mobile voice calls are expected to exceed those on fixed networks. Let’s face it – mobiles are small and convenient for people who are constantly on the move, even more so with a rapidly changing work culture which is moving towards flexibility, home and remote working.”
“Inclarity recently commissioned a YouGov survey which discovered that British business are leaking money through inefficient use of work mobile phones,” Dave continues. ”We polled 2,003 people across Britain and the research revealed that 31 per cent of employees who work in an office make work-related calls from their mobiles when in the office more than two or three times a week. Of those, 65 per cent make work-related calls from their mobile phones more than two times a day. The numbers are staggering, so it makes sense for businesses to seriously consider a fixed mobile convergence (FMC) strategy. It would enable staff to use a wireless connection when in the office or free Wifi, WiMAX and broadband, to make mobile calls and would switch to GPRS when out of range.”
Millett concludes: “FMC could bring significant cost reductions and needn’t be complex to implement. Increasingly business users will have access to soft phones or use mobile phones to make calls over the internet from free WiFi stations, and we’ll see demand for desktop phones fall. More users will make calls through their WiFi’d or broadband-connected laptops.”