Vision

Special telephone networks are no more required, and voice/telephone becomes "just a service" on IP-based networks (i.e. on networks, which are based on the Internet Protocol IP). Likewise, TV signals start to be transported as a service over such IP-based networks waiving the need for specialized TV networks (e.g. CaTV networks). Generally, all services like e-mail, www, telephony, TV and radio streaming or video on demand (VoD) can be offered as a service on the same network. This also allows the integration of these services into applications: TV or video streams become an integral part of websites, for instance, or telephony is combined with video or data sharing. This is referred to as "service integration".

The same content, such as the text of an email, shall be displayed not only on a PC but also on a mobile device (e.g. a PDA) or even on the TV screen in the living room, which then becomes a temporary Internet terminal. Likewise, the laptop of a nomadic user is used to watch some local TV channels from the region at home.

Generally, there is a trend to display the same information on all three types of screens that are currently in use, i.e. on the PC-screen, on the TV-screen and on the (small) screen of a mobile device.

And, the TV screen in the living room gets new functions: while it has served so far to only display live TV streams from various TV stations, it will serve in the future as a large Internet terminal for reading mails or web-sites, as a station to display private pictures and movies as well as a terminal for shopping and displaying an on-demand content. This new function of the TV is referred to as "Interactive TV".

Originally built as a data networks offering services on a best-effort basis, today's IP based networks have to support QoS (Quality of services) management mechanisms: short delays and packet (no) losses have to be guaranteed. In addition, networks carrying vast TV traffic have to support multicast addressing schemes with which the same content can be received by many subscribers without the need for parallel transmission of this content over the same lines.

1. Digital photography applied by everybody while the size of the related pictures has increased from a few hundred KB (kilo bytes) to several MB (mega bytes). These files are transferred forth and back by subscribers.
2. The file sizes of graphical plans or advertisement collaterals, as they are processed every day by architects or web designers using graphical design or CAD tools, also explode in size, each of them easily reaching several tens of megabytes (MB) in size.
3. User generated content (UGC), like the little movies produced by consumers stored on centralized sharing servers, each of them totalling to several tens or hundreds of MB (megabytes) in size. This user generated content is both, uploaded to the server as well as consumed from server by Internet subscribers.
4. Likewise, peer-to-peer sharing tools in the Web 2.0 scenario generate high traffic volumes.

This, of course, leads to a huge and rapidly growing traffic volume on the networks. In addition, the related traffic pattern is symmetric, i.e. the subscriber both receives AND sends large files. Therefore, asymmteric access lines, like ADSL, VDSL or CaTV networks, fall short in satisfying the related. As a conclusion, fibre access networks (FAN) are the only long-term option to satisfy the ever growing need for symmetric traffic.

While providing a telephony service nation-wide has been subject to (costly) maintaining hundreds of local exchanges distributed over the entire country, it is possible today to serve thousands of subscribers world-wide from one centralized server. The same applies for TV and many other services!

Of course, this leads to huge cost savings.

But it has other consequences as well: While, in the past, only large service providers have been able to afford a widely distributed and costly network / service infrastructure, small providers can do the same thing as well today: from a centralized server farm, they can provide the services, while such services are transported over IP-based networks, even world-wide if necessary. Therefore, many mid- and small-sized providers, such as city network operators, are able to compete against the incumbent carriers!

The technology related to converged multi-media networks has become very complex; large know-how and engineering skills, which are rare and expensive, are required to handle the development and the operation of converged multi-media network solutions. In addition, the innovations take place at a high pace.

As a result of this, new and even incumbent service providers, who recently have engineered and operated their network with in-house workforces, are no more able to cope with this complexity and speed of innovation. Small- and mid-sized providers cannot afford to make the related investments, and the costs of an in-house operational workforce can only be offset by a minimum number of subscribers, which such providers may not (yet) have. Larger providers may have the critical size, but they may be slow to adopt the fast innovation cycle. And many providers, finally, are not ready to make related investments into technology development and/or network operation.

As a consequence, carriers and service providers are more and more motivated to outsource the development as well as the operation of converged multi-media services networks while focussing on their main skills, such as marketing and sales and/or maintaining an underlying broadband network infrastructure.