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Three dominant technology areas telecommunications, computers and related communications, and the entertainment industry are converging. Although there has already been some sharing of technology among industries, a single integrated system has not been created.
For example, many existing or planned implementations of videophone service invariably involve a special- purpose terminal with its own display screen and camera. For a home or office already equipped with screens and loudspeakers for use with multimedia- capable computers, the need for yet another imaging system with speakers is a waste of technology. Apart from the cost of duplication associated with the industry separations, there is the problem of the lack of flexibility. For example, if a VCR is connected to a regular TV, it should also be able to be used to record the videophone calls.
A plug-and-play solution may soon be possible in which the components are all part of an integrated system. In such a case, screens, speakers, recording devices, computers, and printers could be used in combination for a specific application. The components would be networked and addressed for the purposes of directing and exchanging information among them. Similar considerations apply to computing components and security systems. Using the videophone example, if the remote videophone user puts a document in front of the camera, the receiving party should be able to capture the image and print it on the laser printer.
Plug-and-play integration is not simple; yet if the convergence is not addressed, the result will be disastrous for end users, who will be faced with a plethora of similar but incompatible equipment that still fails to satisfy their needs.
In the ideal configuration, there would be only one pipe into the customers premises, over which all services voice, video, and data are delivered. User appliances can be used interchangeably. In this scenario, videophone calls could be received on the home theater or personal computer and recorded on the VCR.
In the nightmare scenario, customer premises would include many pipes. Some services would only be available on certain pipes and not others. The premises would have duplicate appliances for generating, displaying, and recording information. End-to-end services would be extremely difficult to achieve because all service providers would not choose to use the same local- or long- distance delivery services. In addition, all the local- and long-distance networks would not be fully interconnected.
Purveyors of technology and services may argue that this means they can all sell more of their particular offerings, which is good for business. Users, on the other hand, are more likely to feel cheated, because they are being forced to subscribe to different suppliers for slightly different services.
Large corporations create networks that are based on their preferred supplier of technology. They are usually extremely conservative in their technology choices because many of their business operations depend totally on the corporate network.
Two factors are causing this traditional, conservative approach to be questioned:
Many users consider the Internet the only true information highway. In many ways, this is true the Internet is the only highway, at least in the sense that it is the only worldwide, seamless, and consistent end- to- end digital networking facility available. In addition, it has become a place where certain standardized applications can be used. It has a globally unique, centrally administered address space. The Internet provides national and international switched data services on a scale that would usually be associated with the major telecommunications carriers.
Not surprisingly, not everyone agrees that the Internet is the only highway. Technically, the Internet is a connectionless packet network overlaid on a variety of network technologies, such as leased lines, frame relay, asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), and LANs. However, it is difficult to imagine that at some point in the future, all voice and video traffic would be carried over such a network rather than directly over a broadband integrated services digital network (B-ISDN).
Thus, there may be a battle between the Internet and the traditional telecommunications carriers for control of the primary switching of data. The carriers may try to establish broadband ISDN as the primary method of switching data end to end, using telephone company-oriented number/ addressing plans such as E.164.
The Internet community is interested in the use of broadband ISDN, primarily as a replacement for leased lines between Internet switching nodes (i.e., routers) where the real switching occurs. The deployment of broadband ISDN within the Internet may result in the migration of routers to the edges of the Internet, eliminating the need for intermediate routers. In any event, the interaction between the traditional router- based Internet style of operation and the emerging broadband ISDN switched services will be closely watched by corporate users.
The anarchic nature of the Internet will also be put to the test by commercial users who will want better service guarantees and accountability for maintenance and recovery. Despite these known deficiencies, the Internet remains the predominant information highway and it is difficult to imagine that it will lose its dominance in the near future.
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