Coming Together of Voice, Video & Data

Convergence is

the key today. You can think about convergence in several

different ways. One is in terms of the actual industries

converging, such as communications, entertainment, and

computing. Another is converging voice, video, and data over a

common infrastructure or within a common computing platform.

One important factor driving

convergence is the transformation of the desktop computer

through faster processors supporting advanced graphics and

multimedia capabilities. The PC today is a collaborative

communication and media tool.

Helps Eliminate Multiple Networks

Another factor driving

convergence is the cost of maintaining three separate networks

for voice, video, and data. Corporations can realize substantial

savings in equipment, staff, and services by using converged

networks.

Enterprises are looking at cost

savings in the WAN as the first leverage point for convergence.

Using Voice-over-Frame Relay, VoIP, and Voice-over-ATM, the same

WAN lines can be used for voice as well as data, resulting in

substantial cost savings.

Next, enterprises want to install

the LAN and WAN infrastructure to do real-time video and audio

information delivery.

For education, a professor’s

lecture can be delivered to remote campuses live or as stored

video-on-demand files on a web site. Converged networks can also

be used to deliver corporate communications, presentations, and

training to employees directly at their desktop.

How Will It Affect Data Networks

Convergence is fundamentally

changing what a data network is, from a traditional data packet

store-and-forward mechanism, to a real-time communication

infrastructure. That really changes data network requirements

and drives the need for higher bandwidth, class and quality of

service, multi-cast support, and policy management.

Many people believe that you

still need to run ATM to the desktop to support these new

features. Ethernet has evolved into a very suitable technology

for delivering these advanced features at about a third of the

cost of running ATM to the desktop.

Using Same Application Standard

With standards-based converged

applications, we see interoperability between different vendors–high-end

videoconferencing systems, for example, can talk to low-end

desktop systems using the same application standard.