Unified Communications – Setting the stage for the future of communications
Written on 23rd March 2009
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Ken Camp, Contributing Opinion Writer, USA
- Image by Getty Images via Daylife
In the next couple of weeks I’m going to explore two future-looking subjects:
- The Internet connected home – Smarthomes of tomorrow
- Personal Area Networks
Because I write extensively about communications technologies, I thought it wise to set the stage and set some parameters around what the industry calls unified communications. Realtimepublishers is one of our publishers, and Sheryl and I write extensively about communications and social media. Up until the end of 2008 I was the author and resident editor for the Realtime Unified Communications Community. We contributed a number of articles to the digital library there. In one eJournal piece for the community, I explained unified communications this way:
Unified Communications – A Broad Definition
Unified communications is an interesting phrase that’s come into widespread use in the past year or two. Many companies have made efforts to brand it as their own, but it’s really a mindset tied to the journey of network convergence.When we’re connected effectively, we’re more productive. Many working professionals are also more creative. With easy access to the tools we use to perform, our work is simpler. We’re able to focus on the work they need to do. We perform at a higher level. Just as companies focus on their core competencies, we as people perform better when we put all of our energy into our primary work objectives
One of the biggest drivers of this increased productivity in the past ten years has been what we call convergence. Convergence is another one of those vague buzzwords that means many things to many people, but there have been some clear and distinct phases
Phase 1 – Voice and Data Converge on the Wire
Convergence really took hold as a concept in the late nineties. IP became the most widely accepted transport technology for data traffic. Around the same time Voice over IP (VoIP) came on the scene as potentially disruptive technology for telecommunications.Prior to this, most large companies often managed multiple networks – one for voice and another for data. In many cases, these networks were supported by different administrative and operations groups.
Integration of voice and data onto a single wired circuit infrastructure helped many companies reduce costs and improve the bottom line. The convergence of network technologies brought efficiency gains in many different business areas.
Phase 2 – IP Takes Center Stage as the Convergence Protocol
The convergence of the physical network onto a single circuit was the start of something that’s still in motion. Voice over IP (VoIP) provided yet another catalyst for change. It was ballyhooed as the end of telecommunications as we knew it and the signal that the legacy telephone companies would be out of business.VoIP has not matured in the way those wild prognostications foretold, but it has become the stable foundation for telecommunications infrastructure. VoIP proved to be an enabling technology that has changed our way of thinking about voice. VoIP pointed the way to voice as simply another service of the network.
Phase 3 – Unified Communications
This convergence of voice and data networks has continued around the globe for the past several years. (more…)
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