PDF of this tutorialIn fact, there can be significant obstacles to building an appropriate convergence solution. Both new entrants and existing vendors face the same issues: Will their solutions accommodate new technologies? Can they select best-of-breed hardware, or are they forced to purchase from a limited selection of manufacturers when they expand or upgrade? Finally, do their solutions allow real-time access and management—i.e., a Web-based model? Navigating these roadblocks toward the right convergence strategy is critical to a competitive model.
Selecting the right equipment hardware is one of the first issues. Consider switches, which are offered by a number of different vendors. Software adds and controls functionality to the switch hardware, but each vendor’s switch is controlled by a separate, proprietary application programming interface (API). Historically, service providers found themselves limiting their new equipment purchases to a single vendor, regardless of best of breed, rather than incurring the expense of developing software to integrate disparate switches. This obstacle, common in telephony, looms even larger in a converged environment. Companies may want to select routers from one vendor and switches from another, but the subsequent integration requires the service provider to coordinate devices that were not designed to operate together.
Realizing a profit, however, is arguably the most significant challenge. After building the converged network, service providers must arrange for collection of data generated from the various routers and switches and then format that data to present unified reports and invoices. Because billing points from different hardware can look very different, the information must be consolidated into a standardized format. Resolving this is only the first step in providing the most rudimentary billing system; to be competitive, service providers must introduce a browser-based system that will allow end users access to information and permit service providers to bill on a transaction as well as flat-rate basis for services.
Old Model Architecture
The old model was to use the component approach when setting up a service provider. The service provider would have to shop and then purchase the various hardware and software component players: the switching hardware, the billing system, the provisioning system, the network management system, and the customer-care system. Then, they would have to build out an information system (IS) to make sense of the information. Incumbents have long used this model—integrating, refining, and financing their infrastructure acquisitions over several years. Entrants invariably followed this model, at a tremendous financial and time-to-market disadvantage. New players were forced to buy at lower volumes, thus paying substantially higher prices for the same components. They not only started with a handicap, but their service offerings looked identical to those of the incumbents. In the end, none of them offered a next-generation, state-of-the-art converged network.
However, the Internet and exponential increases in computing power have changed all that.
