The Fixed-Mobile Convergence Alliance, formed in mid-2004, was a global non-profit organisation for improving products for providing

convergence Convergence may refer to: Arts and media Literature *''Convergence'' (book series), edited by Ruth Nanda Anshen *Convergence (comics), "Convergence" (comics), two separate story lines published by DC Comics: **A four-part crossover storyline that ...

between fixed and mobile networks. The FMCA was incorporated as a not-for-profit association under New York law in August 2006. The Alliance had a membership base of 20 leading global telecom operators, most of which were integrated telecom operators owning both

fixed Fixed may refer to: * ''Fixed'' (EP), EP by Nine Inch Nails * ''Fixed'' (film), an upcoming animated film directed by Genndy Tartakovsky * Fixed (typeface), a collection of monospace bitmap fonts that is distributed with the X Window System * Fi ...

and mobile networks. The included vendor affiliation programme made the operators able to work closely with the associate members, who were all telecommunication vendors.

Members

The alliance was founded by six companies:

British Telecom BT Group plc (formerly British Telecom) is a British Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is the largest provider of fixed-li ...

, NTT,

Rogers Wireless Rogers Wireless Inc. is a Canadian mobile network operator headquartered in Toronto, providing service nationally throughout Canada. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Rogers Communications. The company had revenues of just under $15.1 billion in ...

Brasil Telecom Brasil Telecom S.A. (; BrT) was a major Brazilian telecommunications company headquartered in the Brazilian capital of Brasília. The company was one of three landlines and eight mobile telephone companies – and only long-distance service provi ...

, Korea Telecom and

Swisscom Swisscom is a major telecommunications provider in Switzerland. Its headquarters are located in Worblaufen near Bern. The Swiss government owns 51% of Swisscom. According to its own published data, Swisscom holds a market share of 56% for mob ...

. The purpose of this alliance was to encourage seamless integration of mobile and

telephone services (

Technological convergence Technological convergence is the tendency for technologies that were originally unrelated to become more closely integrated and even unified as they develop and advance. For example, watches, telephones, television, computers, and social media ...

). The member operators had a customer base of over 850 million customers and collaborated with member vendors towards accelerated development and availability of Convergence products and services in areas such as devices, access points and home gateways, roaming and innovative applications.

Standards

In order to accomplish its goals, the FMCA developed close relationships with leading Standards Development, Specification and Certification Organisations (SDO/Fora), including the

Wi-Fi Alliance The Wi-Fi Alliance is a non-profit organization that owns the Wi-Fi trademark. Manufacturers may use the trademark to brand products certified for Wi-Fi interoperability. It is based in Austin, Texas. History Early IEEE 802.11, 802.11 product ...

, Wireless Broadband Alliance,

Home Gateway Initiative The Home Gateway Initiative (HGI) was a nonprofit trade organization to discuss the key specifications and standards of residential gateways, also known as home gateways. It was founded by telephone companies ( Belgacom, BT, Deutsche Telekom, ...

and

3GPP The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is an umbrella term for a number of standards organizations which develop protocols for mobile telecommunications. Its best known work is the development and maintenance of: * GSM and related 2G and ...

. The FMCA actively contributed towards the delivery of existing and emerging standards that were relevant to FMCA product and service requirements. The FMCA did not aim to create standards but rather to accelerate the adoption of the Convergence technologies by encouraging consistency across product and equipment standards.

Disbanding

The FMCA was disbanded in March 2010, allegedly because of lack of demand for its services.

References

{{Reflist BT Group Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Rogers Communications KT Group Telephony Fixed mobile convergence Strategic alliances