Converge to win

One of the main movements within the telecommunications sector is the convergence . One of the examples is seen in the different functionalities included in one mobile terminal: music, video games, agenda, photo camera, etc. Don’t you prefer to have your gadgets 'all-in-one'?

Another example for this convergence is that of large operators, who are integrating the mobile subsidiaries into their structure. And which concept could we relate to that…? Triple-play, or better said, quadruple-play (named ‘grand slam’ as well). That is the combination in one unique offer of a bundle of services: phone calls, television, internet, and also mobile phone calls. Also we talked before about VoIP: having voice over packtes is another form of convergence to achieve to transmit everything through data networks (all-IP). What other examples of convergence can you think about?

Paradoxically, it has been recently alerted that the internet is experiencing a kind of ‘divergence’, based on the idea that different ‘nets’ could arise soon. For example, Asia is going to become one of the biggest markets, but their users will prefer to visit pages in their language rather than with Latin characters. This issue is as well related to the ‘net neutrality’ phenomenon that we wrote about in the last post, as the keeping the neutrality of the internet is a way of not diverging it. Do you dare to predict the future of the ‘global internet’?

Neutrality or Net-reality

The debate is already burning in the internet world. Telecom operators are already asking to charge more to customer’s whose use of their network is intensive. Today peer to peer file sharing, content downloads, etc. are loading the networks with high traffic volumes. This issue is known as Net Neutrality.

So operators claim that companies such us Google, Yahoo, eBay, Amazon, etc. are making business from internet use that is allowed by their networks. Actually it’s clear that the operators make networks and connectivity possible, but they already get paid for it. And contents, which give the value to the networks, are provided by groups like the mentioned ones before. What is the best solution to this dilemma?

Also, this can be related to the idea of free content and services within internet. We’re used to have free email, free instant messaging, free voice calls over IP, etc. This is making people getting used to no cost as well as is one of the keys of the success of the internet. How can business get done then, will users become keener to pay for high value web services?