Verizon Business introduces Global Fixed Mobile Convergence, a new service that can significantly reduce mobile phone roaming charges for European workers who make and receive calls outside of their home service area.

The new service also offers a universal phone number with "find me/follow me" capabilities to reach employees on a wireline or mobile phone for immediate attention, reducing the number of voicemails and spurring productivity.

Using advanced software from MobileMax, Verizon Global Fixed Mobile Convergence determines cost-effective routing for mobile calls. The service dynamically directs calls to either Verizon's cloud-based global voice-over-IP communications platform, powered by Broadsoft, or to the customer's mobile network service if that is the more cost-effective option. This is particularly powerful in helping to contain roaming costs for workers placing and receiving calls outside of their network coverage area, or when making international calls from their home country.

Verizon Global FMC is available immediately to Verizon Business customers in nine European countries: Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. In addition, enterprises headquartered in the U.S. and Asia-Pacific can also take advantage of the offering for employees based in this initial service area.

The new enterprise solution works with an array of mobile devices across most GSM-based mobile operator networks located throughout the initial service area. As a result, new and existing companies can achieve cost-savings for international mobile calls without any additional capital investment and without changing mobile operators or company-issued handsets.

Verizon Global FMC will be integrated next month with the company's VoIP platform, enabling more advanced capabilities afforded by PBX office phone systems and cost savings opportunities for Verizon Global FMC customers who are also Verizon VoIP customers. By combining the power of voice over IP in a mobile, wireless environment, individuals will be able to activate the same familiar office phone features directly from their mobile handset.

Verizon Business' unified communications and mobility consultants can help businesses prepare for and employ Verizon Global FMC in the context of their overall UC&C and mobility strategies. The new service complements Verizon's comprehensive suite of unified communications and collaboration solutions, and is being integrated with Verizon Managed Mobility to simplify management of a multitude of global devices, expenses and applications across multiple carriers around the globe.

In a separate announcement Tuesday (May 11), the company introduced Enterprise Mobility as a Service, a cloud-based solution for businesses to more simply and cost-effectively manage and use mobile devices to access corporate resources.