Fixed Mobile Convergence

Spotted a blog post about Fixed / Mobile convergence (FMC), which seems to have a relatively realistic view of what is actually going on in this space - not so many of the fanciful claims that some marketeers make.

The view from Kevin Evans in this post is:

"Voda and O2's broadband aspirations are at this stage. Even NTL with Virgin Mobile is merely converged branding at the moment but this will change quickly when they complete the merger and integration. BT by contrast is a real leader in the FMC race. They're at device convergence with Fusion and 21CN will take BT all the way to network convergence.

As FMC becomes vital to survival and everyone "is doing it", I suspect the industry will split with some operators becoming converged network operators selling wholesale and retail telecoms services (this is where BT is headed) while others become more service brands."

In my view convergence is all about the customer and not the technology - a point seemingly wasted on many industry commentators. A customer wants good value and all on one bill as they're too busy to mess around - will Virgin be the first to deliver it?