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TMW PREVIEW - Fusion's the name of the game
If you think telecom-media-Internet convergence means a few years’ turbulence and the captain switching on the seatbelt sign to make sure nobody gets injured, think again. Keith Willetts notes that it's clear that all three sectors are going to fuse, but also thinks that telecom can play an important role in the rebirth
The imminence of so-called ‘convergence’ has been a hot topic in communications and networking for at least 15 years, probably longer. ‘Will telecom converge with broadcast media?’ we were always being asked. ‘Will fixed and mobile telephony come together in a single service?’. And so on.
Well not any more. Convergence is no longer just something rumored to be around the corner. Like that other imminent happening, climate change, it's already here and is making itself felt.
With the telecom, media and Internet sectors now so clearly banging up against each other it's not surprising that this year's TeleManagement World in Nice (20-24 May) is putting convergence and its opportunities front and center.
With an overall theme of Managing Telecom-Media-Internet Convergence: Leadership Strategies for the World of Communications, Information & Entertainment, we kick off on Day One with an executive summit 'The Big Bang: Telecom-Media-Internet Collision & Rebirth'.
That's what we think we're looking at now. Not a gentle coming together of sectors where one group of businesses makes a few incursions into another group's traditional territory, but a full-scale fusion and a subsequent re-birth a little further down the track.
EBay's purchase of Skype is an obvious example of the process in action, but there are plenty more. We see traditional telcos trying to turn themselves into Communication and Entertainment Service Providers by adding IPTV to their service offerings and looking to buy and deliver the content themselves. We see cable operators and even satellite broadcasters also selling telephony; mobile operators selling broadband; and just about every other crossover permutation you can think of.
The most urgent question being asked by people working in all these sectors is, naturally enough, who is going to win out? Will traditional telecom service providers be killed off by voice over the Internet on one side and mobile on the other? Will the emerging online publishing industry, enabled by the rise of the Internet, knock out traditional paper-based publishing?
There may be relative winners and losers over time, but a more realistic scenario is that we are entering a technical convergence phase where different types of player will partner to move content over different networks, share revenue, ensure security and so on.
We think that's where the TM Forum is going to make an invaluable contribution. Up to now our mission has been to provide a framework to enable different pieces in the telco back office jigsaw puzzle to fit together in an efficient, easy-to-integrate way. So we developed NGOSS (New Generation Operations Systems and Software), which could be thought of as a blueprint for the internal convergence of the fiefdoms, and information silos that have developed within our service provider members.
Now we're facing the same sort of convergence problem one level up, between different sorts of companies. Because we think we know what we're doing – after all, we've had the practice - we want the TM Forum to be a vehicle for bringing together the new converged telecom-media-Internet environment. After all, we're not just seeing a fusion of technologies but a fusion of different competencies and one of the characteristics of the telecom sector, as exemplified in the work of the TM Forum, is a certain methodical way of stitching together complex, overlapping technologies - it's what we've been doing for about 100 years and we're good at it.
So come to Nice in May and hear more about how we're going to be an important midwife at the rebirth of the new Telecom-Media-Internet sector.
Keith Willetts is Chairman, TM Forum
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