Convergence soon brings added value for end users in the Middle East (page 1 of 3)

Isn't convergence an old story? Convergence is a term that's been used for some years, but originally in the sense of "technological mergers", says Jussi Ilmarinen, Director of Convergence Marketing and Sales, Networks, Nokia. "In the mid 90's there was a great deal of discussion about putting fixed and mobile networks together, but there were no benefits for end users," he adds. "Now when we think about convergence it means added value for the end user. We are all moving around during the day — in the office, in the home, in shopping centers, driving cars— we need to have access to our personalized services, through the best possible access available whatever the technology behind it."

There are different elements to convergence, industry convergence, service convergence; terminal convergence or network convergence says Ilmarinen. All of them are happening at the same time — creating major changes in the communications industry. The change is evolutionary, but they affect existing businesses in many ways.

The User perspective for Convergence

Users, both business users and consumers, want easy access to their own services independent of location. That means someone needs access to their phone book, their messages, their pictures and documents, whether they're at home having dinner, commuting to the office, working in the office, in a business meeting or on a business trip. "All those kind of things," says Ilmarinen. "It means personalisation and mobility for the end user."

That is complex, but people should not have to worry about the complexity. "The network has to take care of that," he continues. "To make it all successful depends on the end user experience. It's a question of simplicity both on the operator side and the end user side."

There is, of course, more to it than that. Every user has a preferred terminal, sometimes more than one, depending on their interests and their job. The idea is that you always have access to all services, whatever the terminals are, but if you are on the move or if you are in the office, the services may be a little bit different. Alternatively you can use the same terminal whether you are at home or in the office or on the move. That means the terminal has to work in different modes, depending on where it is.

Operator's perspective

"Convergence is changing the competitive landscape for telecoms operators," says Ilmarinen. "Fixed operators are now the ones feeling the most pain. They see a serious need to do something because of declining revenues. However, the mobile operators are also waking up, as Internet VoIP clients can be installed also in mobile devices. Mobile operators have also seen that this sort of competition is now starting."

"This means there will be different business models," Ilmarinen notes, as different players all start to move into the converged market. "The players are starting from their existing business and are defining their future strategic direction. Fixed operators are trying to keep in the fixed network the minutes that they are now losing to the mobile networks. Dial-up voice connections are moving to broadband, as voice over IP is taking traffic away from these providers."

In addition, it is not just a question of competition for voice, he adds. There is competition all round for multimedia services. And around all this, the whole of the industry is moving from circuit-switched operation to packet-switched.