Convergence is one of those overly used, and misused, words that all vendors want to have their products and services associated with, and all consumers seem to either loathe or love. In the press, it is often seems to embody all change around us as an expression of all new and trendy. There is no single definition of convergence, and different authors define convergence in different yet usually complementary ways.

Convergence is the latest trend in the business world, in particular among companies with a strong focus on research and development. When I first heard it used in this context about a year ago, I found myself neither surprised nor excited; it seemed rather obvious that when diverse things come together—whether it be biology, mathematics, policy or opinion—often unpredicted and novel outcomes will result. Yet, it gains economic significance if diverse industries—for example, a computer chip manufacturer and a biotech company—form transient collaborations to create new products that neither alone would have considered to be part of their remit. Again, different technologies come together to create new products and services. However, convergence research is more far-reaching than such established research collaborations when it links different businesses that had made a virtue of focusing on their core skills. These growing opportunities for convergence will inevitably affect academia, most notably graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. Young scientists will eventually move on to non-academic work environments and are quite likely to join a team or project in which convergence, not specialization, is the norm. Not surprisingly, the training that they received at their university or research institute will very much determine their success in the job market, and PhD students and postdoctoral researchers who have focused on only one area of expertise—even if they have a long list of papers published in top journals—are likely to flounder in an environment that emphasizes interdisciplinary research. If, conversely, they have spent some time in different environments, or if they have acquired technically unrelated skills during their thesis and postdoctoral work, they will have fewer difficulties in finding a challenging and interesting job. A wider appreciation of convergence research will certainly have a considerable impact on the success and productivity of research itself, whether it is about developing a new product or about finding the answer to a vexing question in basic research. But convergence is not only cooperation at the 'technical' side of science: the perspectives and experience of experts from the social sciences and humanities are increasingly being appreciated. Their involvement is not restricted to product development, such as the design of software that matches intuitive human thought, but it also comes to the fore when analyzing further possibilities from convergence research.
As a result, the online and broadcast markets are colliding, with video services making the move to the PC environment and web-based services becoming a core element of the TV viewing experience. There are an ever-expanding number of channels available for content to be distributed over and an ever-increasing range of technologies to aid the transmission.




Without limiting the analysis to a single definition of convergence, some of the important areas involved will be briefly outlined. Notably, these different dimensions are partly overlapping adding considerably to the complexity of any attempt to categorize and define the different threads that make up the full fabric of 'convergence':
*Network convergence: Different technology segments are served by the same network architecture. For example, the IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) acting as a common core network for fixed and mobile telecommunications.

*Service delivery convergence: Different services traditionally delivered on specific carriers are combined on a common IP carriers as illustrated by the increasing use of voice over IP (VoIP) technology for voice transmission on data networks.

* Service convergence: Applications and services that originate from different industry segments integrate into richer experiences independent of the underlying supporting technologies, as illustrated by convergence of broadcast radio and Internet radio.

*Terminal convergence: Refers to the integration into fewer devices (personal digital assistants (PDAs), smart phones, etc.) with many features that used to be available on individual specialized devices only (cameras, word processors, electronic games and MP3 players).

*Contents Convergence: The generation of contents become increasingly coordinated across media sectors. Transmedia consumption combines experiences from television, Internet, gaming, telephony and so on.

*User culture convergence: Subcultures of consumer in the various media sectors merge into true multimedia communities that increasingly influence the mainstream information and entertainment cultures.

*Business convergence: Denotes the multitude of new partnerships, alliances and acquisition across the old industry demarcations between, for example, telecommunications, entertainment and information technology (IT) that trigger new organizational structures, new strategic relationships and new business models.

*Digital convergence: By adding yet another dimension to the definition, convergence may also include the combining of the 3C areas of industry, as well as the music industry and has a distinct but yet dawning influence on the traditional telecommunications business.


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Online video delivery is emerging as a true competitive threat to existing content service providers, offering the potential to extend reach to new consumer groups. Broadcasters and content owners are delivering services direct to consumers, regaining some of the control they had lost to other players across the value chain, while pay-TV providers and video rental firms are adding online video to their service mix to boost their appeal. On the flip side, consumer electronics manufacturers and pay-TV operators are adding web-based elements to their products and services. Increasing integration of web browsers into home devices, the emergence of TV widgets, and further deployment of enhanced interactive services aim to add greater value to offerings, and could act to divert consumer attention away from the PC for some basic tasks.
Telephone, radio, and television are the most widespread communication media. Radio reaches people in both the developed and developing countries. It is accessible via inexpensive receivers, and because it is sound based, it can be engage as people go about other business, such as work or commuting. Telephones are similarly extensive in their spread.
Analyst predict that sit on the eve of convergence. In this view, the disparate technologies of telephone, radio, television, computers, and data communication will all converge into a single system. The rhetoric of progress paints a glorious picture of intelligent communication and instant access of everything and everyone. The world wide web is seen as the most likely infrastructure for convergence, with entertainment video and telephone racing to adopt themselves to that context.
Like so many technocultural developments, the future holds both possibilities and dangers. Is convergence a development to be welcomed? Is there any wisdom in having several separate parallel communication media? Is there something to be gained by separating sound from image? Should artist really abandon any attempt to make inroads in the old media of radio and telephones? What new possibilities inhere in converge media? These are the questions that face the telecommunication artists of the next millennium.
New services, new technologies, new market structures, new business models, and less stringent regulations. Convergence has brought change not only in the way we live, but also in the way we think. But then, not everything is rosy about convergence. The truth, however is, the challenges have to be met. There is no run-away option.
Medium is certainly not the message. Not anymore. Today, each message can have its own virtual medium-which offers the advantages of each traditionally different medium while removing the limitation of each. The receiver now has got the capability to "customize" the medium. Till yesterday, he could only choose.
With digitalization, commonality among technologies is increasing and the specific characteristics of traditionally different media (and hence traditionally different services) are fast becoming a thing of the past. For example, broadcasting was a transient medium. Storing and retrieving was certainly not a characteristic of broadcasting. Today, that is no longer the case. The news capsule at 10.00 can be watched at 10.30. And it does not have to be stored at your end. Somebody else does that for you. Similarly, you do not have to sit with all the newspapers in the last six months for researching on something. Just go to the web site and search for the items of your interest.
There are two important identifiable trends here. One, the selection of media is no longer an either-or. It is a mix-n-match. Two, the control over the message is steadily moving from the source to the receiver.
Now, that itself is convergence for many. But then, there is much more to the word.
Convergence refers to the blurring of dividing lines among traditionally distinct products and services, technologies, markets, industries, and regulatory structures.
The choice of the phrase "blurring of dividing lines is deliberate, in preference to the more commonly used "coming together". This is because, whereas the latter is description of a definite phenomenon, which may or may not be happening, the former describes only the capability. Similarly, the choice of phrase "traditionally distinct" is to envelope all that can come under it, and not to define it in specifics like computing, telecom, entertainment, etc. Similarly, we acknowledge the fact that more words could be added to service, technology, product, market, industry, and regulatory structure. Words like say, media, which can be a physical media like cable, wireless, satellite, etc., (in which case it will come under technology in the above definition) or media as in television, press, cinema, etc., (in which case it will come under services in the definition).
However, while it is certainly more correct, a broad, holistic definition does not always clarify things to a great extent. Going in-depth to specific issues is not always possible by using an umbrella definition. Take, for example, the challenges of convergence. They are different at different levels. Different levels such as technology, market, industry, regulation, and services have their own characteristics, issues, challenges, and barriers to convergence.
One tries to approach the phenomenon of convergence from the user end . One does not claim that this approach is superior to any other. But one has to start somewhere.



While no one can deny that convergence is happening today, there is a wide gap between the perception and reality regarding the nature, extent, and pace of convergence at different levels such as infrastructure, consumer devices, markets, and regulation. For example, while more of the talks revolve around accessing Internet from cellphone or through television sets, they are not a large-scale commercial reality anywhere in the world. But a less glamorous convergence like Intelligent Networks at the carrier infrastructure level or Internet over cable (not through TV, but through cable modem and PC) are realities.
This has primarily three reasons. One, the network has to be ready for offering new services and capability before the end user can access it through fancy consumer devices with new capabilities. Two, the service providers have traditionally been in one business (telecom, broadcasting, etc.) and they want to expand the scope of that business by diversifying to other services or offering newer services. Hence, they are adopting newer technologies for the purpose. Last but not the least, selling to the service providers is more focused and the selling cycle time is lower. For consumers, it requires a lot of marketing effort.
But it has one fallout. Since, it is the operators who are the ones taking the lead in investing on converged new technologies; the technology development is taking an evolutionary, rather than a revolutionary path. This is because the investment that has been made earlier has to be protected.
Interestingly, while there has been a spate of mergers and acquisitions of late, many believe that while convergence at the technology and network infrastructure is happening, it does not necessarily mean that convergence of markets would follow automatically. Nevertheless, convergence acts as a catalyst.
A major concern that follows from the impact of convergence is that monopolists-both the traditional state-owned monopolies and ambitious new market leaders-are using the convenience of technology convergence to enter to other markets, killing small companies there. Though, it is essentially a regulatory challenge, it nevertheless affects the direction in which technology moves. Some IT companies, for example, are driving the convergence, because IT is the common platform for most convergence and also because some IT companies are extremely cash rich, because of their high market value. The consumer electronics companies who understand the consumer well, have been sidelined in this game. The IT companies are trying to export the PC business model to consumer electronics and communication, resulting of course, in open standards and price drops, but at the cost of simplicity. This might be a reason why despite the new capabilities today, convergence has not really happened at the end user side. The new technology that is coming is anything but simple.
There is another drawback of IT companies leading the game. Most major IT companies are US-based and have tried to export that market model in IT and succeeded, whereas companies in other segments have to play by the local market rules. This is creating a situation where common people learn to use technology, not because they like it, but driven by fear that they might possibly lag behind.
Another danger of convergence is that the objective of business organizations is drifting away from serving the users. The Net has made it possible to create new services easily. Many companies find a niche, package communication, information, entertainment, commerce in a unique manner and float a company, with the objective of building a high paper value, keeping the stock market and not the market for their products/services in mind. Their valuation is also done with the short-term objective in mind. These companies create converged products/services that is aimed at becoming an instant hit and no more. Naturally, technology convergence takes a wrong direction.



Convergence is one of those overly used, and misused, words that all vendors want to have their products and services associated with, and all consumers seem to either loathe or love. In the press, it is often seems to embody all change around us as an expression of all new and trendy. There is no single definition of convergence, and different authors define convergence in different yet usually complementary ways.