Over half of UK businesses are believed to be considering Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) in a positive light. Research conducted by Vanson Bourne on behalf of software and services vendor Martin Dawes Systems estimates that 10 per cent of UK companies are already using the technology and another 7 per cent are planning to implement FMC in the next two years.

The figures sound a bit high, given that BT only launched its business service commercially last month and main stream competitors such as Orange have yet to bring their enterprise offerings to the table. Even BT thought so when we asked them.

The researcher surveyed 100 businesses with in excess of 500 UK employees.

Nevertheless, cost savings are regarded as the most significant expected benefit, according to 75 per cent of respondents, with 63 per cent expecting improvements in employee productivity.

On Monday BT updated its consumer FMC Fusion offering with wifi capabilities, the enterprise version of the service has been available since mid-December. A Bluetooth platform has been available for much longer – for around 16 months in fact – but BT still only has a subscriber base of less than 50,000 Fusion users.

When asked about the biggest challenges in deciding on future telecoms services, 64 per cent of respondents to the Vanson Bourne survey said the upfront cost to implement the system, while 48 per cent said the need to justify return on investment.

Around 40 per cent also expressed concern about whether incoming technologies such as FMC would be sufficiently future proofed.

More to follow