BT has announced a new business mobile phone service called BT One Phone. It combines the features of a conventional fixed-line PBX switchboard with mobile technology.
The new service follows the creation of a joint venture earlier this year between Sweden’s OnePhone Holding and BT.
Each user can be contacted via an office landline number, a mobile phone number or an internal extension number. In most cases, BT will also install a private mobile network of femtocells at the company’s offices and a dedicated data link to improve local coverage. When users leave the office, they’ll connect to BT’s virtual mobile network via EE. They’ll also have access to BT’s network of 5 million WiFi hotspots.
A company can use cloud-based access to add and remove mobile employees as they join or leave, activate or deactivate SIM cards and set up call forwarding or ‘hunt’ groups without the need for technical support.
Graham Sutherland, CEO of BT Business, said “With an increasingly mobile and demanding workforce, businesses need communications technology that is as flexible as they are. Missed calls mean missed business. Today’s announcement, combined with the upcoming launch of our 4G services demonstrates our ongoing commitment to the increasingly mobile UK workforce.”
O2 and Vodafone have both previously worked with BT to provide converged fixed-line and mobile phone services.