Analsys & Opinion The Right Angle Mobile operators eying DSLAMs | Mobile operators eying DSLAMs |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Tuesday, 11 April 2006 | |
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Page 2 of 2 Alcatel sums convergence up today as "giving users whatever service they want, anywhere, anytime without them having to worry about how it is delivered." But it is actually much more than that: it's also about giving users unprecedented control over the what, where, when, to whom and how. One example given by Alcatel was of a mobile phone user, directing a movie trailer to be delivered to a friend's cellphone as part of an interaction around seeing the movie together. It might sound trivial but the networking complexity too deliver, and equally importantly bill somebody for this, is enormous. Until recently it was not all clear how the vision of convergence was to be achieved across disparate networks provided by different vendors, but the recent rise of something called the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) has changed all that. It has defined the functional units of converged networks and services and means by which they communicate: so operators can buy IMS compliant hardware and software from different vendors to support different services, and ultimately bring all these together into a converged network offering converged services. In this scenario there will still be scope for niche operators, but anyone wanting to play big time will need to have access to and be able to deliver services across both fixed and mobile networks. It's worth noting that in this sense Telstra is one of the best placed carriers in the world: not only does it play in just about every sector of its market, it is also a very significant if not the major player in each of these markets. This is where there is potential for Telstra and this is the vision being pushed Sol Trujillo and his amigos, although of course making the transition will be far from easy. But if Telstra is half way successful that will be bad news for major competitors like Vodafone and Hutchison that remain mobile only plays. And if you need more evidence that Vodafone is determined to be in the convergence game, look no further than our report of this week's announcement of a global split into three functional units, one of which will "focus on converged and IP services in order to deliver new revenue streams as Vodafone seeks to provide innovative services to its customers."There's a limit to what you can converge even on today's mobile handsets, and equally a limit to what consumer want converged onto a device they carry in their pocket with a small screen. Any true converged offerings will have a very significant fixed line component.
UPDATE: The day after this article was written, Reuters reported Carphone Warehouse, Europe's top cellphone retailer, announcing plans to offer British customers free broadband Internet connections as part of a phone services package under a strategy to "transform itself from a high-street retailer into an alternative telecoms operator".
Also see Vodafone contemplates $A65 billion writedown {moscomment}
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