What Is Convergence?
03/29/2010 05:00
When you ask most telecom guys what convergence is they will say, “It’s combining voice and data on the same pipe.” They are right but not completely. Today convergence is a very different concept than what it started out to be. It describes the collision of many once separate things. So, in addition to the combination of voice and data as enabled by IP, we also are seeing the LAN and WAN coming together. We are running distributed businesses wherein the boundaries of the LAN are becoming less discrete. IP and Ethernet technologies span both, making them seamless in many environments. Employees increasingly are working in branch offices, at home or on the road, making “the office” wherever they are. This trend has been enabled also by wireless technologies. And, therefore, we are seeing a convergence of wireline and wireless. We use the term “fixed-mobile convergence” to describe this marriage, which links two disparate network types together in a seamless experience. Of course, no discussion of convergence would be complete without bringing up the convergence of communications applications, e.g., a unified messaging or unified communications. Voice mail to e-mail is a great example. You’re probably with me so far; this is old news. But what’s newer is the convergence of communications and business applications. While you could argue that UC is part of this, the term, “communications-enabled business process,” is taking hold to describe things like click-to-call from a CRM program or phone-enabled patient checkout. We are also seeing a convergence of equipment and services in the cloud, hosted and managed services models, which blend the two together. Taken together, all of these types of convergence are transforming the way the businesses work. Voice and data applications and infrastructure are combining either on-premises or in a data center (or both) and are available from anywhere. It’s a lot to get your head around. But where there’s confusion (or convergence), there’s cash. We’ll be helping you make sense of it in the pages of PHONE+ each month and on this Web site.
User Comments !
Good points Khali. I believe there is also another notion at play with convergence, and that's the "joining up" of the traditional business user to the available technology itself. We (those who live and work in this industry) have been "early adopters" and witnesses to what has been coming down the pipe, but the normal business "rank and file" are now being introduced to the available technology in a much more user friendly way (i.e. cloud computing, hosted services, lower costs... all of which are very enabling components). The "consumption" of convergence has been (slowly but surely) driven by our own industry's ability (or inability) to deliver it in bite sized chunks. Convergence is as much a matter of perspective and availability as it is technology.
Posted by: cary bush | March 29 2010 19:12:37
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