Network convergence where is the value

FMC is paving the way for what may be the ultimate real evolution of telecom from wireline centric systems to wireless centric systems and the resulting flexibility and security you gain from converged networks. What's more this call is often placed to another office PBX phone in that same office.

You are using up capacity and creating inefficiencies for the carrier and the customer. You can take a phone call as you are walking into the office and seamlessly reconnect without having to hang up and dial back in.

You now have one voice mail has all of them in one place. If you have set up your PBX networks and negotiated favorable calling plan arrangements, no longer would you lose some of those benefits when employees take those calls off your wired network and put them on your wireless network. McRoberts says that offers have been designed to incentivize customers to use the MPLS network for voice, video and data. But as in everything new there are challenges; and they can be solved through education.

According to McRoberts one of Sprint's challenges is some people think of Wireless Integration as some sort of campus Wi-Fi implementation with your PBX, which means new phones or separate types of phones.

And since Sprint has had some Wi-Fi implementation campus wide for years, they ask what is new and different. Rapidly changing technology, lack of good business models, and lack of visibility in the near-term for renewed growth all create an uncertain environment.

Yet, the global Internet is becoming a multi-service network infrastructure that can potentially replace existing disparate voice and data networks. Although it is widely believed in the telecommunications industry that network convergence of voice, data, video, and images is an industry driver, not much attention has yet been paid to a key proposition: what value does network convergence bring to business and residential customers?

This paper explains how different industries are converging; the technological, economic and regulatory forces that are at play and how the various customer segments can benefit from network convergence.

While technological advancement is transforming industry and business models rapidly, one question keeps coming back to haunt managers: Where is the business value?

We illustrate the value proposition of convergence for various players by first explaining the paradigm shifts happening across industries and then highlighting the "high velocity spiral" of knowledge dissemination theory that is fueled by convergence.

Chatterjee, S. Network Convergence: Where is the Value?. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 9, pp-pp.