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For some time now, it has been impossible to listen to the speeches of the numerous industry luminaries – pontificating on the latest direction for the communciations industry – without hearing the words ‘network’ and ‘convergence’ in the same sentence. And, far from being just another ‘buzz’ word, convergence [of networks and services] is increasingly being seen as the technical and business model on which to build a successful future. Moreover, the well publicised feature of the cable companies to offer their ‘triple play’ of voice, data and video is an ability an increasing number of traditional telcos are attempting to emulate. In the, now, cut throat business of electronic communications, the ability to utilise existing network for the provision of multiple services could be the difference between commercial boon and bankruptcy. Of course, the simplicity of the convergence concept belies its highly complex reality – where a multitude of different technologies, architectures and protocols must be brought together in such a way that their combined value is more than the sums their parts. Furthermore, there is a separate sub argument at the technical and commercial level concerning which component technologies most accurately reflect future market developments. In short, convergence is not something that can be approached lightly. Times have changed According to Swedish telecoms giant Ericsson, existing telcos can do the ‘impossible’ and transform their single service networks into networks with full multiservice capabilities. Key to such a change will be via implementing multiservice networks with comprehensive management intelligence, tying wireless and wireline access networks together over an IP-based backbone to handle voice, data and video seamlessly. In the view of Ericsson, because of ATM’s QoS (quality of service) features – enabling it to differentiate and prioritise different types of services – it will form the underlying layer upon which IP services can be run. However, it is expected that in the near future, IP will develop its own QoS features enabling ATM to be phased out. Grant Notman, UK General Manager of RAD Data Communications thinks that telcos have already been converging their networks for a very long time – well before cable companies came on the scene. "The difference now is that they are being asked to provide it all from one platform," says Notman. He continues: "On the face of it, this should be very simple: select the target customers, decide on the features to offer to win these customers, select the platform they feel does the best job and get on with it. However, real life, as we know, is not as simple as this. Telcos, like everyone else, are having to make the political compromises that corporates have been making for years." Notman also stresses that network convergence was never black and white. "Very few of them came into the market with the view that they could offer all requirements on the same platform," he says. "Even if they did, they soon found out that they had few customers that wanted everything at the start and were swung in one direction or another by the customers they actually had." Legacy issues Indeed, many telcos that are now approaching the convergence conundrum, understandably, come from a background where their networks have been optimised over the years for the provision of voice services. And this affects what they can do to integrate other applications like data and video into their existing service offerings. Furthermore, says Notman, the problems of convergence run deeper than digital technology. "Strangely, for these people the first major problem they encountered was not so much the technology but the work force they had,” he says. "If they were from a voice background, getting them to understand data and video sometimes just would not happen. Clearly, if they could not get their sales force to understand the offer, then getting orders was going to be hard work, and for most it was." Paul Fileman, group product manager of Siemens Communications believes that the main challenge posed by offering voice, data and video through the same line is the quality of service issue. "This issue has been around for a couple of years and is still a high priority. The bandwidth which has been available has struggled to cope with voice, data and video over one line, and many people have had bad experiences where data was dropped, calls muffled, or images jittery and of poor quality." A local problem? As we move ever more steadily towards packet switching technologies and IP, the need for bandwidth availability is crucial and explains the need for local loop unbundling. According to Vince Kerr, director of Northern Europe from Zhone Technologies, a telecommunications equipment manufacturer, convergence of voice, data and video in the backbone network is, for the most part, complete. "The challenge is convergence in the access network," he says. "One method of achieving this is through cable, which is fine for cable companies who have invested in cable infrastructure. For telcos, however, the most cost-effective and widely deployed solution is xDSL, which offers the equivalent bandwidth for voice, data and video integration as a cable solution and has the added benefit of being a non-shared medium." Robert Curran, director of product marketing at Cramer, a supplier of network resource management software, thinks traditional telcos have a long way to go in changing their thinking on network structures. He believes they need to move away from the fixed path switching world to take advantage of IP technology. "Telcos are fundamentally based on providing what is essentially a very high quality and technically demanding product – voice services – in switched networks. The data world upsets that idea by giving access to a wider range of possible qualities by swapping visibility for flexibility," says Curran. However, Native Network’s Eli Erlich, believes that competitive carriers already understand the merits of utilising Ethernet to carry IP-based services such as data and video in tandem with native TDM (Time Division Mulitplexing) circuits. This, he says, enables them to carry toll quality voice services while opening the door to future IP value-added services. "The traditional telcos are a bit slower in adopting new technologies, but they are starting to come round,” says Erlich. “In the last few months more and more telcos are issuing RFIs (request for information) and RFPs (request for proposal) to modernise their existing SONET/SDH networks by adding Ethernet capabilities that will enable them to offer new, IP-based services in a more efficient and cost effective manner,” he says. Clearly, for telcos, there are numerous challenges to be overcome before they are able to offer credible competitive services in the way the cable community is able to. Today, only the cable companies have the two-way network capacity needed to deliver 'triple-play' packages of data, voice and video services to consumers. While the telcos have a consumer reach the cable companies can only dream of, the question remains, however, ‘are they prepared to exploit it’. While they undoubtedly have the will, arguably, many will be unable to develop expensive full service networks until they are able to shrug off their respective millstones of 3G debt hanging heavily around their necks. |
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