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Evolution of Convergence

Our increasingly mobile lifestyles conflict with how traditional voice and communications services are deployed. Both enterprise and consumer users want services that can be delivered at any time, over any device and with any content. They want services that are independent of specific network infrastructures, so that they can choose when and where those services are delivered.

In a perfect world, converged services would be delivered over a single infrastructure. But we don’t live in a perfect world, and as advances in technology have changed how we communicate, they have also changed how communications solutions are developed, packaged and consumed. Carriers’ desire to fully leverage their existing capital investments, plus the complexity of delivering services across diverse networks, have a profound effect on how quickly new services can and will be introduced. 

Fixed mobile convergence, as it has been defined over the past several years, will never reach mainstream adoption unless it evolves to focus on delivering an exceptional user experience while streamlining the process of bringing people together.  Switching voice calls between access mechanisms will not be the tipping point for driving adoption – the power will be in leveraging that capability, and combining it with presence, location, and behavior data from the network, and delivering it to the applications to ultimately deliver the next generation of personalized communications convergence.

End users want flexibility. They have multiple devices tied to different access technologies, and they want to use the one that is most convenient and delivers the best user experience. They want to be able to switch devices in the middle of a call. They want to be able to extend the features and benefits of their offices or homes to their mobile phone to create a truly seamless communications environment. Users want a more simplified and consistent experience. They want to bring together their various forms of communications, including voice, video, conferencing, presence, devices and numbers.  Ultimately they want more control of a communications experience that is tailored to their unique requirements.

The challenge today is how to give users the freedom to control and personalize their communications experience while leveraging the technology to enable that.  This is the basis for Newstep’s market-leading convergence solutions.  While other solutions require service providers and enterprises to wait—for new devices or new networks, NewStep solutions allow service providers and enterprises to capitalize on the demands of the mobile lifestyle with their existing networks and IT infrastructure. True service convergence today—that is the fundamental difference with the NewStep approach.