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Page 2 of 3
Levels of Convergence
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Network convergence is the simplest and the most widely talked about convergence. Data/Voice/Video are on a single pipe; add to that presence/mobility. This is the “Network is the platform” story that Cisco would love all to believe. The only problem though is their understanding of ‘Network’ is restricted to just the ‘Data’ Network.
For the telecom vendors, their network is the Telecom infra (the towers. MSCs etc); for the enterprise companies, the CRMs is the network. So each of the above mentioned players could say, “Network is the platform,” and then define their own ‘network’.
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Service level convergence is slightly tricky. Let’s say, as an end consumer, you have the landline/mobile/IP TV/Video/Cable services from the same provider. It could be Comcast; it could be Bharti in India.
As a consumer, you would expect the same service across all these channels. For example in India, CRBT (Caller Ring Back Tone) is a widely used service. Bharti, for example, provides Landline/Mobile, Data (Broadband not yet IP Telephony) and DTH services. Assuming you have CRBT for your mobile phone, can you easily add the same services to your landline phone?
When Video becomes a reality with the advent of 3G services, can my ‘audio’ CRBT be converted seamlessly to ‘Video’ CRBT across all my channels? The answer to that is ‘No’ and the simple reason is that the services are not ‘integrated’. Bharti does not have one single Technology service provider nor do they have a SLEE layer that will enable easy service creation.
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Application convergence can be better understood as ‘mesh-ups’. You take two applications, merge them together and create the third application. This is the source of sustenance of the Web 2.0 companies.
With all major players having Open APIs to integrate to their platform—it could be a scrabble on Facebook, an application on an iPhone to access Google Maps, an application on an IP Phone to access the local intranet etc, all this points to application convergence.
The segment you fall under (Infra/Enterprise/Web) defines the level of convergence that is to be adopted.
Real Unification? >>
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