It may be good to talk, but mobile coverage and cost can dictate otherwise.

Careless talk on a mobile phone rarely costs lives, but it can be a problem. It can be dangerous (where it adds risk to driving), inappropriate (in a cinema), disturbing (when bellowed across a train) or distracting (when calls are made by divers during their Olympic competition).

The expectation of being able to use a mobile phone anywhere feeds the calling habit – even when it might not be the right thing to do. We know that even when in the office or home and a fixed phone is available that many of us are likely to make a call from a mobile in preference to a landline – even though the fixed phone will probably be much cheaper to use. The mobile is convenient because it is always carried on the person, their contacts are stored on it and its use has become a digital habit – just like the way some people use Google as supplementary memory capacity.

The cost of mobile calls, while always a concern (especially for business users), is accepted because of this convenience and flexibility. In recent Quocirca research, over a third of small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) thought that mobile voice costs were under control or not an issue, and a further third thought that although it is costly it is worth it. The convenience of always being in touch has more perceived value than the cost, even if the cost is painful.

This expectation of connectivity and convenience means that lack of service has withdrawal consequences. This is something many suffer at odd times while travelling during the day – a gap in signal strength between cells – but it is a much more inconvenient problem when it happens in known fixed locations, such as the office or other working locations.

Despite good populated area coverage in most of western Europe, Quocirca research covering SMBs in Sweden, France, Germany and the UK found that many have employees suffering from occasional loss of mobile signal – over a third while at their work location, and almost half while working from home.

Business premises in city centre or out-of-town business park locations stand a good chance of good coverage, but many smaller businesses are widely spread. While home offices and those working from home should expect some form of mobile coverage, it might not be with the same operator as their employer has set up a contract with, often leaving the business mobile phone with emergency coverage only. Not especially a good way to work or present a responsive image for a small business.

A number of solutions have appeared to try to alleviate these twin problems of mobile coverage – especially in-building – and cost. All fall under the umbrella term of “fixed mobile convergence”, but tend to address different aspects as they are offered by companies with different technology or business agendas and some go further than others in what they try to converge.

The different agendas are rooted in existing assets and industry models – the networks and handsets – but what is critical to the user, business or consumer, is the service. Does it improve coverage, reduce costs and complexity or add further value? For the SMB it will be most helpful in that order of importance. Make voice calls work with more consistency in quality and price and then let’s look at going further into mobile data, unified communications and so on.

These are worthy end goals, but an important milestone en route is consistent, reliable and cost effective mobile phone calling – not mobile data, rich media or video, just voice. While there can be no doubt that some significant technological advances have been made, it is less clear that the new technologies tackle the primary driver – make it easier for people to remain in touch, cheaply.

This does not really require radically new technology, different types of ra dios or more complex phone handsets, it just requires mobile coverage at the points of use and the operators have a way to offer this with smaller cell towers (called microcells, picocells and now generally femtocells) that can be installed in homes or business locations.

Some, such as Orange in France, and just recently Sprint in the US have started to offer these solutions. The technology works reasonably well, there are a number of different companies offering competitive alternative products and they have recently hit the right sort of price points for SMB or consumer deployment. However it is fair to say that business models are still being explored and tested by operators, and there are some residual concerns about whether driving the cost of the technology down so far, so quickly has affected some aspects of quality.

These issues and the traditional hype that accompanies many technologies aside, the expectations of mobile connectivity are only going to grow. It might seem like only a step on the way to something bigger, but even the longest journey starts with a small - perhaps, even femto - step, and talking is something humans tend to be familiar with.

For a more in depth look at the mobile communications needs of SMBs, download this free Quocirca report, Loud and clear.