Unlike previous catchphrases, what’s behind the term convergence are many divergent views.

Wireless professionals love buzzwords and catchphrases. Throw out something like “killer app” in a gathering of industry professionals and watch heads turn. Never mind that each of those heads may contain a different concept of what constitutes a killer app, at least this term projects a broadly recognized concept. I don’t think the same can be said for the current hot buzzword – convergence.

Strolling through any recent wireless show, it’s clear that “convergence” must be of vital and growing importance. After all, just about every purveyor of a device or system more complex than coax cable claims that its products support convergence. Although convergence isn’t always a positive thing in the broader universe – two vehicles converge just before crashing into one another – in the world of wireless telecommunications it seems to be akin to the holy grail.

WIRELESS/WIRELINE
It’s clear that the term “convergence” is being applied to many different industry trends. Take, for example, the much heralded convergence of wireless and wireline networks. The laudable objective appears to be to provide seamless integration between commercial wireless networks and the PSTN or enterprise wire-based private phone networks. Equipped with a single handset, the mobile user operates on the ubiquitous wireless network, but seamlessly moves to short range radio links for connection with the wired telephone system while in the office or at home. Meanwhile, some overarching mobility management system keeps track of things to make sure calls are delivered where they need to go on the converged networks.

Why not just use the wireless network and eliminate the wired telephone system altogether? As many wireless users are finding out, that’s often a good idea for residential phone service. However, networks and technologies intended for universal coverage don’t do a particularly efficient job of serving the high concentrations of telephone traffic found in many enterprise locations.

From this description, wireless-wireline convergence sounds pretty attractive, and I suspect it ultimately will be embraced by many enterprise users. However, there aren’t any accepted industry standards for such convergence (covering all air interface technologies) and none are in the works. In fact, there are a number of competing and incompatible schemes to provide such integration for the enterprise market. You might even say that there is a divergence in wireless-wireline convergence.

“Convergence” also is tacked onto various mergers of voice and data services, from mixed media messages to that old chestnut, the “picture-phone.” Of course, VoIP fits in here somehow since it provides voice/data integration at the transport level. From a purely technical standpoint, there’s an obvious gain in elegance to be had by integrating voice and general data on the same network, but when it comes to wireless the quest for maximum spectrum efficiency should easily trump the seduction of network architecture elegance. VoIP may have a number of advantages for telephony, but spectrum efficiency isn’t one of them. Although we may see convergence on fixed portions of wireless networks, my bet is that most voice traffic on the air interface will continue to be carried on dedicated channels for some time.

There are a number of other sorts of convergence going around. Mobile TV systems promise telephone/entertainment convergence. Various applications are aimed at wireless/e-commerce convergence. And at the top of the heap, smartphones are intended to provide convergence between communications and every other aspect of the user’s life.

All of this talk of convergence really illustrates how completely ingrained wireless has become, to the point that all sorts of other things want to be associated with it. Stick on the convergence label and it gives the association an air of inevitability that might conceal all sorts of technical or business hurdles. However, to be successful, any convergence will have to deliver value to network operators and their customers. Providing value by integrating two or more previously separate elements: That’s as good a definition of convergence as any.

Drucker is president of the consulting firm Drucker Associates and
can be reached at edrucker@drucker-associates.com