Convergence Futures - 10 : Convergence Obstacles
As with every new and emerging technology, there will always be roadblocks to overcome. Convergence is no different, but perhaps "roadblock" is too strong of a word for convergence because it continues to press forward no matter what the obstacle.
A few years ago there was a strong push to do voice over IP, and IP telephony, without really knowing the ramifications of executing such a solution. Excellent marketing was performed to demonstrate how much of a cost savings, or ROI, would be achieved if organizations migrated to convergence through the means of VoIP and IP telephony. After all, having your voice traffic and your data traffic on one bandwidth pipe should be better than two, right...?
Well, now customers and analysts have wised up by taking a step back (however, this is still after taking two steps forward) to re-evaluate how effective convergence has been and will be for future deployment.
Customers have heard how it can save them money, resources, time, etc., but they're taking a more thorough approach to the matter by double-checking the math.
In addition to reanalyzing the ROI factor, there are several additional areas that may contribute to this "math checking." One of them is the need for consistent quality of service (QoS). Because voice is a time-sensitive application, and most QoS tools do not guarantee delivery but simply prioritize it, this poses an irritating problem for customers who have relied on perfect voice quality from their PBX and are now compromising this quality for the sake of convergence.
Another obstacle in the future of convergence is the actual complexity of the implementation itself. For small deployments of convergence this may not require much, but for enterprises that span North America, or even the globe, convergence can be a lengthy, drawn-out process that may be discouraging.
This brings us to yet another topic of concern, and that is the issue of security. With the need to protect sensitive information, and perhaps even the integrity of a company or individual, current voice standards lack the ability to require encryption and authentication, which would ensure protection to the vital resources every company seeks to guard. No one likes their privacy invaded; just imagine what could happen if things like company merger discussions leak out before proper announcement. (It would be... bad.)
This topic of voice standards is probably the third main area of scrutiny convergence must resolve for the future. In the voice world of standards, H.323 leads this evolution. However, the introduction of more new and promising standard protocols such as Megaco, or Media Gateway Control Protocol, and SIP, or Session Initiation Protocol, are reshaping the way convergence is deployed throughout the enterprise and to the desktop.
Above all, know that things change. You probably know this by now through taking this course, but it often seems that "Internet time" is different than "normal" time. The waves of technology and change will continue to press forward - hopefully, with what you've learned in this course, you can keep up.