Convenience, cost-reduction, and convergence are the new mantras in the emerging Communication and Entertainment
(ComEn) industry. Cost-reduction attempts are turning the industry upside down; archrivals are signing alliances, and the
equipment suppliers are trying to become network/content providers. At the same time, cross-layer optimization and
cognitive mechanisms are being explored for network access, traffic transmission, and Apps store development.
Increasingly, many of the ComEn devices are becoming all-purpose devices. Ease of use (convenience) is driving the
development of palm-top and hand-held devices to support voice calls, messaging, gaming, video conferencing/sharing,
television (live or pre-recorded) program viewing, and so on. And, the support of convergence is the fierce motivating
factor behind all of what are happening today!
The driving force behind all of these is ultimate commoditization of device, services, network, and applications —
irrespective of whether the domain is Communication or Entertainment.
Traditional voice, video, and messaging services have already been commoditized: Skype voice/video, Google
voice/video, and a host of others similar services are available almost freely. Voice mail service is being replaced by the
use instant messaging (for presence-announced users), Web based service-provisioning is toppling the use of Star-codes
for advanced call/session feature activation, video on demand (VoD) services using over-the-top access is overthrowing
the traditional movie rental business. Traditional service providers are therefore introducing value-added and
differentiated services. In consumer domains, these services include any-time/anywhere IPTV, gaming,
converged/blended and personalized services. And, in Enterprises, these include TeleMedicine (TeleMed),
TelePresence/TruePresence (TP), healthcare data exchange service (note: TeleMed and TP are used in Enterprises today,
and in near future these will find their ways to consumers’ premises).
These emerging requirements impose several challenging network operations, transformation, and customer service
requirements. Traditional client-server models are evolving to peer-to-peer (P2P), managed P2P, and cloud-based models
for both real-time and near-real-time services. In addition, a wide range of reliability/availability (including continuity),
security/privacy, mobility, multi-domain service provisioning, etc. are being demanded by the marketing and business
operations. In this presentation, we will explore the current Industry activities for finding implementable and
interoperable solutions to these problems — in the context of next generation networking — using the emerging IP
multimedia subsystem (IMS), and service-oriented architecture/network (SOA/SON) Standards. |
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Dr. Bhumip Khasnabish (b.khasnabish@ieee.org) is a Distinguished Lecturer of the
IEEE Communications Society.
He has authored numerous patents, journal articles, Standards document, and books
in a variety of areas related to converged services and new generation networking.
His recent contribution entitled “Next Generation Technologies, Networks, and
Services,” appeared as a chapter in the book “Next Generation Telecommunications
Networks, Services, and Management,” (ISBN: 978-0-470-57528-4, Hardcover, 328
pages, April 2010, Wiley-IEEE Press, NJ, USA).
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